Personal passports and profiles

A personal passport is a document that brings together the most important information about a deaf child. It helps childminders, nursery staff, teachers, Teachers of the Deaf, school staff and club leaders get to know your child and how they can best support them.

A personal profile is a document that brings together the most important information about a young person. It can be shared with anyone caring for them or working with them so they can support them in the best way possible.
 

Personal passports and passports are designed to be quick-glance, easy-to-read documents. They are a starting point for ongoing conversations. If a deaf child or young person has different needs in different settings – for example, in the classroom versus at a sports club – they may need multiple versions of the document.

Details could include:

• level and type of hearing loss
• communication needs
• information about hearing technology such as hearing aids and radio aids, including when and how to use it and how to replace or charge batteries
• how to create a positive experience
• situations which may be challenging
• safety information

Creating a personal passport

Personal passports are useful across a range of settings, such as school, sports clubs, childminders, hospitals and guides/scouts.

We recommend involving your child as much as possible in creating their passport to help build their confidence in identifying their needs and asking for support. This could include choosing which template they want to use, drawing a picture of themselves in the space provided, or making suggestions about what they find useful in different situations.

As soon as they feel able to, we encourage young people to create their own personal profile. Advocating for your own needs is an important part of developing confidence and independent living skills.

• Decide whether to write in your voice (‘Adam is deaf’) or your child’s voice ('I’m deaf’).
• Be as specific and detailed as possible. For example, don’t say ‘Needs hearing aids checked regularly’; say ‘Needs hearing aids checked three times a day’.
• Don't say more than you need to – important information might get missed if you write too much.
• Create different passports for different situations. What you tell your child’s teacher might be very different to what their childminder, scout leader or football coach needs to know.
• Update regularly, preferably at the start of each new school year, as changing schools/teachers can be a particularly challenging time for your child.
• Don’t include confidential information that will limit who you want to share the passport with. This sort of information can be passed onto a keyworker or teacher in a different way so that the passport can be widely shared.

Creating a personal profile

Personal profiles are useful across a range of settings, including school, college, university, work, sports clubs and health appointments.

We recommend that young people fill in personal profiles themselves. It’s a good way to build independence and self-advocacy skills. A trusted adult could support if needed.

• Be specific and detailed. For example, instead of ‘I need to take regular breaks’, try ‘I need to take a five-minute break for every hour of listening’.
• Don't say more than needed. Really important information might get missed if there’s too much text.
• Create different profiles for different situations. For example, teachers and tutors might need to know different things than a sports coach.
• Set a reminder to update the profile at least once a year. The start of a new school or calendar year is a good time, as new teachers, tutors, classmates and colleagues might not be deaf aware.
• Don’t include information that is too personal if it would limit who you’d share the profile with. Tell the relevant person this information in a different way (such as face-to-face or by email) if that will be more private.

Using our templates

These templates are starting points. They're designed to be adapted to suit your needs.

The PDF versions are designed to be printed out and filled in by hand.

The digital Microsoft Word versions are designed to be filled in on a computer. You can add or delete sections, change font sizes and add in different colours.

The formatting of the digital Microsoft Word versions may appear differently in online platforms, such as Google Docs. Using a desktop version of Microsoft Word helps maintain formatting.

Suggested text with examples of what you might want to say are in italics and in square brackets. Delete or replace the text as needed.

Most of the questions in the personal passports and profiles use empty text boxes, which you can type into. There are some sections with checkboxes. You should be able to click on the box to add an ‘X’ for the relevant options.