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10,000 people sign petition to protect deaf children's services

Published Date: 03 Apr 2019

Seven of our local groups have united to say enough is enough - cuts to support for deaf children must stop. As of today, over 10,000 people have joined them in calling for Government ministers Damian Hinds and Nadhim Zahawi to protect these vital services by signing their petition.

In this post, Ann Jillings, parent campaigner and chair of Waveney Deaf Children's Society, explains why their petition is so important.

This video is in BSL with subtitles.

https://youtube.com/embed/X2CzS3p4-yI?rel=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.ndcs.org.uk

Ann Jillings discusses the parent petition calling for the protection of deaf children's services

Ann Jillings, parent campaigner and chair of Waveney Deaf Children's Society, discusses a petition set up by seven of our local groups, which calls for the Government to save vital specialist support for deaf children.

Transcript:

My son is profoundly Deaf. Provided he receives the right support, there are no barriers and he can achieve anything.

The support he gets from a Teacher of the Deaf is crucial. When he was born and we learnt he was Deaf, our family really didn’t know anything and we felt quite panicked because there were so many choices to make, for example should we sign or talk? These decisions were overwhelming.

Our Teacher of the Deaf explained lots of information to us and this gave us the confidence and knowledge to know which options were right for him. Now he is at school the Teacher of the Deaf still has an important role, working with the mainstream class teachers and monitoring his progress to be sure that he achieves his full potential.

Looking to the future and exam time the Teacher of the Deaf will support him with access arrangements for exams and will support him to prepare for life after his GCSEs are finished.

If there was a reduction in his support, I really don’t know how he would cope - it would just be awful.

At the moment, I am worried because of the declining numbers of Teachers of the Deaf and the widespread cuts to services for deaf children nationwide. It is a worrying situation, which is why I have got involved in this petition because this support for deaf children is vital and if the government don’t fund it properly their futures are at risk.

Thank you for watching this, please add your name to this petition. Thank you.

By Ann Jillings, parent campaigner and chair of Waveney Deaf Children's Society.