The lawyers trying to give deaf people a hearing

Ten million people have a hearing problem but legal aid cuts will make woeful provision of legal services worse, finds Neil Rose (Guardian 11/08/11).

The legal system is not geared to handle the need of deaf people. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi
You don't have to look very far to find stories about deaf people who have been let down by lawyers and the legal system. There's Funmi, a deaf Nigerian who has lived in the UK since 1987 but whose solicitor did not make her citizenship application correctly; David, a self-employed man whose solicitor did not fight his corner over benefits he was entitled to for being wholly reliant on his hearing mother to communicate with clients; and John, whose union solicitor did a bad job of his disability discrimination case against a well-known financial institution. All of these people eventually turned to RAD Legal Services, part of the Royal Association for Deaf People and the country's only dedicated legal resource for the deaf. Why are there not more, especially because – with nearly 10 million people suffering some sort of hearing problem – it is potentially a huge market to serve? Its head, solicitor Rob Wilks, is not certain. "It could be because deafness is a 'hidden' disability," he says. There are small signs of this changing. Blackburn law firm Joseph Frasier will next week launch a campaign to provide legal services for deaf people under the headline: "Representing your right to be heard." Claiming to be the first private law firm dedicated to deaf and hard of hearing people, founder Saimina Virmani says it is the culmination of 18 months of preparation; the campaign was inspired by deaf staff working in the building where the firm is situated (which belongs to the East Lancashire Deaf Society) and by her experience of acting for a deaf client. She has also come across "terrible" stories of solicitors denying deaf people access to interpreters and simply not understanding the different ways they need to communicate with deaf people, such as in the way they write letters. The firm's fee-earners, none of whom are deaf, are being taught British Sign Language (BSL) and it is adapting its communication channels. "The last few months have been a journey for us and we have loved learning about deaf culture," Virmani says. "The deaf community is very tightly knit and although we see people who are deaf as being on the outside of our world, the tables have now completely turned and we are on the outside. As legal professionals we are trained to use the power of our advocacy and voice but in working with deaf/hard of hearing clients, this has essentially been taken away from us." The legal system, it appears, is simply not geared to the needs of deaf people – Rob Wilks says deaf people who use BSL as a first language often have poor literacy levels (the average reading age for deaf school leavers is 8-9 years). "This means that they cannot understand information leaflets and correspondence, or access telephone helplines using a textphone," he says. A report in 2009 by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the advice system of CABs, law societies, union sources and private firms of solicitors "are often still inaccessible to profoundly deaf customers" though the Disability Discrimination Act has been on the statute books since 1995. Now the Equality Act 2010, it requires service providers to make adjustments to ensure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people. This is not happening across the legal system, both in most law firms and in the courts. Part of the problem, Wilks says, is the "chronic shortage" of interpreters, but it is just plain neglect as well. One of Virmani's projects has been to build a network of law firms (now numbering nearly 50) around the country that have committed to become deaf-aware and will be able to help deaf people in their area if face-to-face help is required. The association began an advice service in 2000, transforming into RAD Legal Services in July 2007, when Wilks, who has been deaf since birth, qualified as a solicitor and the £500,000 Big Lottery Fund deaf minority advice project commenced. Over the past four years, RAD has handled nearly 1,500 cases, with employment, welfare benefits, discrimination and housing the most in-demand areas of law. It has a contract (until March 2012) from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to provide discrimination advice to deaf and hard of hearing people throughout England, Wales and Scotland. Plans for the first deaf law centre are also well underway. And there is further hope that the legal needs of deaf people will be understood. The legal services consumer panel has confirmed that the first of a series of studies into how specific groups of consumers (particularly disadvantaged ones) experience legal services will be in partnership with Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID). Emma Harrison, a member of the panel and head of public engagement at Action on Hearing Loss, says the study has come out of work the charity has been doing to improve access to the courts and hopes to highlight the pockets of best practice that exist in the legal profession. But the prospect of the legal aid cuts could worsen the situation for the deaf community, Wilks says. Aside from simply not being able to afford legal advice, law firms or other legal advice providers that have legal aid franchises will no longer be able to rely on legal aid to claim the costs of interpreters as a disbursement. "This means the number of providers willing to provide legal advice to deaf people is likely to decline." Given the low base from which this is starting, it is a woeful prospect.

Deaf man complains nudists would not provide interpreter

A deaf man has accused a nudist park in upstate New York of violating federal law by refusing to provide him with a sign-language interpreter at an annual festival reports Daniel Wiessner, Tue Aug 9, 2011, HUDSON, New York (Reuters).

Tom Willard, 53, of Rochester, filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department claiming Empire Haven Nudist Park violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing his requests for an interpreter.
"I am fed up with being turned away every time I try to do something, by idiots who somehow feel the ADA does not apply to them," Willard wrote in the complaint.
The ADA law requires businesses and nonprofit groups to provide auxiliary aids and services, including interpreters, at no additional cost to users. First-time violations can lead to fines of up to $55,000.
Willard told Reuters that in 2009 he approached a board member of the Naturist Society, which organized the festival, who told him he could hire his own interpreter. But he said the board member denied his request that he and the interpreter attend the event for free.
The six-day event costs $45 overall, plus an additional $17 for each day a person attends.
Willard filed his federal complaint on July 19.
On August 2, the festival's opening day, the Naturist Society offered to get an interpreter but said it would need three days notice to do so, Willard said.
Willard said he wanted to raise awareness of groups that ignore the ADA. He said he was also filing a complaint against a local comedy club that refused to provide an interpreter.
"I hate that I have to go through these experiences and subject myself to ridicule and derision, but the alternative is to stay home and never try to do anything in the world," Willard said.
Michael Schwartz, director of Syracuse University College of Law's disability rights clinic, said businesses often ignore their responsibilities under the ADA because it can be cheaper not to comply.
"Because of the cost (of interpreters), many places choose to say 'no,'" he said. "They are making a calculated choice that they'll get away with it."
A spokeswoman for Empire Haven, which is in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, was not available for comment, and Morley Schloss, the Naturist Society board member contacted by Willard, did not respond to several requests for comment.

Not all deaf people want to be 'fixed'

Cochlear implants work for many deaf people, but the surgery involves big changes – those who reject it should not be judged writes Charlie Swinbourne, Friday 5 August 2011

'The audiologist issued a warning about continuing to learn sign language.' Photograph: Turbo/zefa/Corbis

As a deaf person, there's a few standard things you expect to happen during an audiology appointment. These include: having your hearing checked and your ears piped with warm plasticine to make new ear moulds for your hearing aids (I've always secretly loved this bit), and being gently chided for not cleaning your ear moulds more regularly (I'm a lifetime offender).

Yet you may also come into contact with people who despite their job – treating deaf people – are not incredibly deaf aware. I've never met an audiologist who knows sign language, and have winced as I've watched some of them repeatedly call out patient's names with a slightly annoyed look on their face, as if they've forgotten that said patients (often sitting quietly reading an old copy of Reader's Digest) might not be able to hear them. What you wouldn't expect is for that lack of deaf awareness to go another extreme, and to have to endure your audiologist denigrating the deaf community you belong to because you have politely declined their offer of a cochlear implant. Yet this happened recently to deaf actress Emily Howlett. Howlett had been offered an implant before, and said no. But on this occasion, the audiologist refused to back down, telling her that she needed the operation, incredibly, "to prevent her falling into deaf society". This came after Howlett told her audiologist that in the last year – after acting a number of deaf short films – she has made deaf friends and started learning sign language, discovering the deaf community. As Howlett told me: "My identity is a deaf person now. I didn't go to deaf school, and I didn't grow up with deaf peers, but I'm deaf now and it's me. I'm not sure I want to change that." The audiologist responded by calling in a number of colleagues to help persuade her. Howlett said: "I told them that it was upsetting for them to sit there basically calling deaf people broken and disillusioned." The audiologist then issued a warning about continuing to learn sign language: "She said I would end up alienating all my hearing family and friends. My voice will go, and my lip-reading skills will decline. Meanwhile, my signing will never be as good as [deaf people] who grow up with it." The total lack of professionalism aside, what makes Howlett's experience more puzzling is that it's unclear how much benefit she would get from cochlear implants, because her deafness isn't due to a condition in her ears, but rather due to the way her brain processes the information her ears receive. "When I asked what benefit I'd get from cochlear implants," Howlett said, "the audiologist said she couldn't say for sure. I'd maybe end up with no improvement, or it might improve my tinnitus, or it might make it worse. Or I might be able to hear, although she admitted it'd never be good enough to hear speech properly." Despite this, the audiologist then said: "Don't let the deaf influence your decision. Make the right one.'" At this point, Howlett walked out. This is not an argument against cochlear implants. More and more deaf people now have them, and they have become more accepted in the deaf community (here is a fantastic blog charting the jump from hearing aids to cochlear implants). Several deaf people I know recently decided to have one fitted. The first, a father of two (who still uses sign language as well as speech to communicate), had an implant so he could hear his children if they cried, and also hopes in time to be able to use the phone again. The other loves music, and had implants after losing the little hearing he had left. Both weighed it up carefully and happily and feel they benefited from their decision, but that doesn't mean it should be assumed that they are the default option for every deaf person. There's no way of knowing exactly how you'll adapt to a new way of being able to hear. The 2007 documentary Hear and Now followed an American filmmaker's deaf parents as they had cochlear implants after a lifetime of deafness. The film showed how the couple had wildly contrasting responses, with the father embracing the implants, while the mother was deeply unsettled by sounds she had never heard before. On a less dramatic level, some deaf people I know have struggled to adjust to using digital hearing aids after wearing analogue hearing aids all their lives – which they've also complained that audiologists do not understand. While for many there is a positive outcome, implants are not an easy fix and they involve a massive change in deaf people's lives. There is an operation, recovery time, then a period of adjustment in which people learn to make sense of the sounds they're hearing, sometimes for the first time in their lives, sometimes after years of not being able to hear. Deciding whether or not to undergo surgery is a personal choice, and deaf people should not be judged for the decision they make.

Sri Lanka's deaf march for equal rights, jobs

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- About 1,000 deaf Sri Lankans took to the streets of capital Colombo on Friday to demand equal rights, social recognition and more sign language translators, with an official saying only about four are currently qualified.

The protesters from the Sri Lanka Central Federation of the Deaf held a rally opposite Colombo's main railroad station to highlight their plight in a country still struggling to return to normalcy after a 25-year brutal civil war that ended in 2009.

The federation's Vice President Anil Jayawardena said the community of 73,843 people, according to a 2001 survey, is facing hardships in daily life because sign language is not properly recognized.

"As a result, we face severe difficulties when we go to a bank, courts or to get medical treatment," Jayawardena told The Associated Press, speaking through a translator.

He said the situation is further aggravated because of the shortage of qualified sign language translators.

"There are only three or four such translators and besides, no meaningful steps have been taken to help the deaf people carry out their work in the society," he said.

Sri Lanka has a population of 20 million.

He urged the government to take effective measures to see that "sign language is given proper place and ensure the deaf people equal access to education, jobs and health care."

The protesters displayed a huge banner reading "Ensure rights of deaf community" and carried placards with words "Deaf won't take no, Honk 4 Deaf" and "No more negative attitude."

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