Change Your World consultation results

Last year NDCS carried out its first ever consultation with deaf children and young people. We wanted to know what type of services deaf children and young people wanted from NDCS today. We made a determined effort to reach deaf children and young people from across the spectrum of deafness, from those with a mild level of deafness to the profoundly deaf. 

We received 1,468 responses from young people aged 9 to 18, plus 255 responses from parents and 188 from professionals.

Our findings are summarised below. Please follow the links to see the results as either downloadable PDFs or as BSL videos. 

• Deaf children and young people’s responses varied according to a range of background variables, with levels of deafness having a strong impact on the responses.
• Individually mainstreamed deaf children demonstrated a greater demand for activities with deaf and hearing children together. This was further emphasised by a higher demand for joint activities in oral compared to signing children.
• Severely and profoundly deaf young people do not feel information and advice is available to them.
• Of the moderately deaf children who responded, 30% wanted to change their deafness more than other groups.
  
• Deaf children and young people knew of NDCS, but had very little information of substance; they did not know what services and activities are provided by NDCS.
• Deaf children and young people want a range of activities, segmented and focussed on their needs.
• Deaf children and young people want to meet other deaf children and young people, and have fun although this request varied according to levels of deafness.
• Deaf children and young people want to be involved with NDCS – participating, leading, volunteering and creating information.
• Deaf children and young people don’t use the NDCS website and want a new website of their own.
• 82% of deaf children and young people want to be contacted again by NDCS.
• Parents and professionals think we should provide information and advice for deaf children and young people.
• Parents and professionals think we should provide activities for deaf children and young people.
• To a lesser extent, parents and professionals think we should provide activities for deaf children and young people together with hearing peers. 

Some strategic questions that we now need to explore include:

• Who do we design our activities and events for?
• Who has the greatest need for our scarce resources?
• How can we create a safe online environment without it being sterile and unattractive?
• How do we communicate directly with deaf children and young people?
• Who does NDCS need to partner with to meet the clearly different needs/wants/expectations of the young people who responded?

We will continue to engage with deaf children and young people as we explore these questions over the coming months.

To see the results in English and BSL, click on the links below:

Results for 9 to 13 year olds

Results for 14 to 18 year olds

Results for parents

Results for professionals

Click below to see BSL version of the text on this page.