Raising deaf awareness in our local community

When we found out Kenzie was deaf we had absolutely no knowledge or awareness of what we would need to do to support him. We didn't know where to start. We had great support from Kenzie’s team of professionals who pointed us in the direction of the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS). We attended an event hosted by NDCS when Kenzie was only a few months old and we had the opportunity to meet other families like us which was a great help. After this event I was on a mission to help increase deaf awareness and help other families like us, so I decided the best way to do this was to remove my access to sound for the day and raise money for NDCS. We wanted to help support future events that are so valuable to families and their children.

For the day I popped in my ear plugs and wore my ear defenders while holding a sign letting people know I was learning more about my son’s deaf world. We all wore our NDCS t-shirts and walked around the community with charity buckets, handing out leaflets to promote our silent disco. People were so lovely and supportive but it was obvious how difficult it was for people to communicate with me without me being able to fully hear what they were saying and not being able to understand the sign language that I was using. This really opened up our eyes and made me want to do more to increase awareness around the use of sign language.

The support from our community was overwhelming. We started a Facebook campaign #signyourname where we asked people to video themselves signing their name using British Sign Language and we were so pleased with the response. Children as young as three were signing their names and Kenzie loved watching the videos. 

We have continued to spread awareness and share our deaf journey with others using our Facebook page ‘You don't need to hear’ where we share videos and stories of Kenzie as he grows and develops. From this I get so many families contacting me asking for help and advice and I am honoured that I get to help others in their journey too.

Kenzie is now two years old and exceeding all of his milestones and this is due to the support from his team of professionals, his nursery and our local community. We will continue to increase awareness as much as we can in the future!