AVUK CEO appointment highlights ambition of ‘no barriers for deaf children’

Auditory VerbalUK (AVUK), a national charity working with deaf children and their families, has appointed Anita Grover as its new Chief Executive to succeed Jacqueline Stokes. Rod Walker, chairman of the charity’s board of trustees, said:

“We’re delighted to appoint Anita from a strong field of candidates. She brings top-level leadership and communications experience as well as good policy and government relations knowledge. She also brings unique insight into hearing impairment as someone who is profoundly deaf herself. Our goal for the babies and children that we work with is that there should be no barriers between them and the rest of the world around them. This appointment is testimony to that ambition of no barriers in the way of deaf people.”

AVUK’s approach of giving families access to auditory verbal therapy has a strong and evidenced track record of enabling deaf children to gain age-appropriate

listening and spoken language by the time they start school. Anita Grover said:

"It is a great honour to be chosen to lead AVUK which is quite simplytransforming the lives of deaf children and their families.With recent Department for Education figuresshowing the gap widening between the educational achievement of deaf and hearing children, there has never been a more important time to invest in an early intervention approach that improves the life chances of deaf children, while delivering long-term savings to national and local budgets."

The charity’s work has been nationally recognised with a GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT Award for ‘Excellence in Community Healthcare’. It has recently opened a new centre in London in addition to its base in Oxfordshire. Anita Grover comes to AVUK from a senior civil service background where she directed government marketing and communications campaigns and worked on a range of social policy issues at the Departments of Education, Social Security and Work and Pensions. She said:

“I am really looking forward to building on the strong foundations laid by AVUK’s founding director, Jacqueline Stokes and the dedicated teams in London and Oxfordshire. The achievements of children graduating from the AVUK programme are extraordinary. I firmly believe that every family faced with a diagnosis of deafness should have access to auditory verbal therapy, if they want their child to learn to listen, speak and participate fullyin mainstream life."

Cont...
For more information:

Hannah Burnham +44 (0)1869 321492
Email:
Web: www.avuk.org
AVUK is a registered charity funded by trust funding, grants, fees and voluntary donations. Registered Charity No. 1095133

Notes for editors:

Department for Education figures on educational achievement of children with hearing impairment published on 24th January:

Statistical First Release SFR04/2013.

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/m/sfr04-2013.pdf

Anita Grover – biography

After graduating from Kent University in 1991 with a degree in economics and politics, Anita pursued a career in the public sector directing a series of highly successful government marketing and communications campaigns and working on a range of social policy issues at the Departments of Education, Social Security and Work and Pensions.

As a senior civil servant, Anita led communications on the government's disability, employers, pensions and poverty agendas, working with a succession of cabinet ministers, business leaders and third sector organisations. Her most recent position was Head of Communications Group for the Department for Work and Pensions. Anita is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing.

Anita has been a trustee of Chiltern Citzens Advice Bureau since 2011 and is a school governor at a primary school in Buckinghamshire. Anita is 42 andlives in Chesham, Buckinghamshire with her partner Steve, two-year-old twin boys and two grown-up stepchildren.

Anita is profoundly deaf after losing her hearing progressively from childhood. She had successful cochlear implant surgery at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital, in 2006.

Photo file attached

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