Look at Me Reception. 13Th May 2008. SUSAN DANIELS: Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Evening

Look At Me Reception.
13th May 2008.
SUSAN DANIELS: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening every body. Before I start can I check the communication arrangements. We have an interpreter here. Palantypist there. So, and a loop which I assume is working beautifully, so hopefully every body can see who they need to see. .
My name is Susan Daniels I am chair of the UK Council on Deafness. You can identify the staff from UKCoD who are floating around some of them have got badges and carnations which are identifiable. I am hoping that the MPs here have made a rare exception and are easily identifiable tonight by badges because I know we have had difficulty of identifying them. Please if you would not mind making yourself known to the delegates because we really do want to use this as an opportunity of networking for organisations represented here to have the opportunity to talk to the MPs. It’s a real pleasure to see so many people the annual deaf awareness week, so welcome.
We have a really good list of speakers we will start off with Rosie Cooper who is the Vice Chair of the all-party group on deafness, she has kindly agreed to step into cover Malcolm Bruce who is out of the country tonight.
We will then hear from Hardip Begol who is the director for the FE N division and then Bill Petchey who is the Vice Chair of TAG. Without further ado I will hand over to Rosie who will talk about the work of the all-party group. {applause}
ROSIE COOPER MP: Thank you Susan for that introduction. Whilst I am delighted to be here at the annual meeting and the reception for the all-party group on deafness, believe me I would much rather Malcolm was making the speech.
But as Vice Chair of the group I would like to take the opportunity and to thank you, there are so many people here tonight the attendance is really great and I hope you will make most use of the networking opportunities. Let me assure you I will not speak for too long at all. What I have been asked to just talk you through about the work we the all-party group has under taken over the last 12 months and quickly look forward to the year ahead. .
But first I just want to give you, those of you that don't know me a very quick idea about who I am and my back ground. I am actually the daughter of deaf parents. I have high frequency loss and have 2 hearing aids myself in the chamber when somebody says something quick fire and all hell is breaking loose at Prime Ministers questions I am the one say: Who? What? What? What did they say? So any way. I also say to people that deafness is the norm for me and that I was kidnapped by the deaf community at birth.
My character and my experiences have been totally influenced and affected by deafness. I mean from very small I booked a holiday, my first holiday when I was 4 years old, I don't remember, but it gives you an idea how I was my parents voice. The reason I am an MP today is in large part because I grew up in a deaf family during a time when there was no much thing as the Disability Discrimination Act when they had to fight for every thing they wanted.
I will tell you a couple of quick stories. It’s all about communication, about making sure that you have absolute access, that BSL is taught, that it is a language that is used universally and is recognised.
When I was a child we did not have a TV, when I was 16 there was a war in order to get a radio because my parents thought that was a waste of money, sat there and did not do anything.
But eventually we got the TV that was a really interesting time, because when we first got the TV I didn't enjoy it, because every time I watch anything it was "what are they saying, what is happening now? . Why, tell me" because I missed the news, I missed the next bit, it was really frustrating. But then I worked with people like Paddy Ladd, the BBC and eventually the BBC started with subtitles on. So small number of programs compared to the 100% you have got today.
Now, I was just talking to some people and saying, the day it struck me what a real difference, I was only a teenager, the day it struck me, what a difference it made you being able to have full access was when first of all my Mum used to watch Coronation Street that is when she used to say to me what is the plot, what are they doing and one day she said you know her name is Betty. It was big. It was the first time she engaged with the characters, but then when I really knew is when my Dad came out of hospital and one TV program one side had Coronation Street which my Mum watch and Dallas was on the other side instead of me fighting with my parents what program to watch they were fighting each other. That told me that for the first time they really had access.
. Having full access is so important. I talked to some people tonight, we will start a real hard campaign in the autumn, Chris Jones and TAG and various people are going to start campaigning and I hope that we will all help as much as we can to get that going.
So the group itself what have we been doing over the last 12 months.
We have been active over a wide variety of issues over deafness and they really have been diverse from looking at modernisation of audiology services the education of deaf children, development of mental health services of deaf be plant boy is that so needed. The protection promotion of British sign language and then what we were talking to the Prime Minister about as well, increasing the number of qualified BSL/English interpreters. And promoting Access to Communication in English for deaf people.
. You might imagine that they flow off the tongue, quite a large grouping, but they have taken so long. I mean we met a group of us, a group of Sign Language users and Susan was the primary force on that day we went to see the Prime Minister in February to ask the Government to give British sign language legal status, the same status enjoyed by other languages like Welsh and Cornish and improve access to those services, employment, expand a whole range of things. Cultural activities. Sign Language users need more interpreters to enable them to have that full access and training of those interpreters and making better use of the technology is exactly where we need to be. That is the campaign that will happen in October. We also need to provide real real in depth support to family to enable them to communicate with deaf children. Frankly the other way happens as well. I am deaf child of deaf parents nobody taught me how to sign they did. And I had no access whatsoever to help with any of the things that I had to do. Some of the difficult things that go on in the family I had to do it without any access or help at all.
. So, what else did we do, we met with Ivan Lewis in May to discuss the Government plans to improve audiology services and reduce the waiting times for the fitting of hearing aids. We have had some darn good news there and that waiting time is reduced dramatically around the country that is a real success story.
. On June seventh we held a meeting with lord Adonis to discuss education for deaf children and agreed a proposal to gather statistics on achievements of deaf pupils.
In March this year, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the recognition of British sign language the all-party group arranged for BSL to be taught to ten MPs. By the time I got there it was too late not that I needed any.
I can tell you that my colleagues thought it was a great success and they enjoyed that basic learning of Sign Language. It’s been a productive year. It will help us communicate better with our constituents and better with you. I think there's reverse to that coin. You have to be able to have access to us {bell ringing}. Oh dear. I think that means there is about to be a vote. I am not sure. Any way.
. Can I quickly just round up by saying, as much as you think you need to get to us and that we need to talk to you it is a 2 way street so please I offered to do some help with the promotion of the campaign in October, we will have to go over to vote but we will come back and hopefully you will chat to us about what you any. Thank you very much to you as individuals for coming. Thank you very much to Jonathan who supports us wonderfully well and keeps us all going during the year and make sure we deliver these things. The deafness agenda is your agenda, you drive us. Please. Thank you {applause}
SUSAN DANIELS:Thank you Rosie. Thank you very much. .
I think you have heard how busy the all-party group has been and in terms of some of the achievements over the last year they have made a real difference. We will now hear from Hardip Begol from the department of Schools and Family who has exciting news to share with us.
HARDIP BEGOL: I am here speaking on behalf of lord Adonis who apologises for not being able to make it to this All-Party Parliamentary Group. Its quite surprising that Malcolm Bruce is not here because a lot of initiatives that we are taking here do stem from the work that he has been doing to improve the status and promote British Sign Language amongst Parliamentarians and the department.
A key issue for the department is about narrowing gaps between vulnerable children and their peers. And when I first started in my job, in March last year, Susan Daniels did not take long to come and meet me to tell me about the scandal of their attainment by deaf and hearing impaired children.
As a government very committed to make sure those gaps narrow over time, both Susan and NDCS and Brian Lamb at RNID have been stead fast that we get down to the data that shows the difference between those attainment levels and that we take action to reduce those.
We have been working closely with Susan and Bryan to make sure that we shine the spotlight on those local authorities and schools which have significant gaps and that we then take action to try to address those.
A key part of taking action in this area is to make sure that the work force have the skills that they need. We have also been lobbied quite hard by organisations like BATOD, Paul Simpson is here to highlight to us how old the work force is getting in terms of those that have mandatory qualifications, you would not guess it looking aren't an audience like this.
But then we have a profile of teachers who have mandatory qualifications in hearing impairment, visual impairment, and multi-sensory impairment, is something that we are concerned about. So children's and families published in December. Said that we would improve the work force skills and we will invest additional resources from next September. September 2009 to make available free courses for teachers that want to pursue those qualifications and hopefully that will make sure that there is a new generation of teachers coming through with those qualifications which should enable them to meet the needs of deaf children.
I met with Malcolm Bruce at the end of April, following the evidence that we received from the All-Party Parliamentary Group and organisations such as NDCS and RNID we worked the up proposals for a pilot project to look at how we could then improve British Sign Language provision. And status of that language for families of deaf and hearing impaired children and young people.
Our objectives for that project are to make sure that families with deaf children can make informed choices about whether their children learn and communicate using BSL. And the families have access to courses that enable them to learn BSL in a family environment, make sure there is demand from the children's work force both in early years and in the schools for BSL skills, including to higher levels. To meet the needs of BSL users.
Make sure that in responding to that de demand that there is increased supply of BSL tutors, courses and again including to higher levels that there is a presumption that level 1 of BSL is adequate for people, but as you know if we narrow that attainment the gap deaf children that are BSL users that want to take advance courses and want to do A levels and so on they need BSL support which is at that level.
We also want to demonstrate how existing centres of excellent in BSL, such as deaf special schools, our minister met with the Frank Barnes School in Camden recently about the reorganisation happening in Camden. And the specialist unit in mainstream schools or the BSL course providers can play a key role to for the projects aim.
The key role for a pie not project if we are going to have it rolled out nationally depending on the findings, is to demonstrate how progress can be made sustainable beyond the project's life. The key issue for us is that projects are funded for a short period of time and when the project funding ends there is no sustainability or rollout from the projects so we are asking for organisations within the deaf community to bid for taking this project forward, we sent out the specification today and we are asking for organisations to come back by the beginning of July, because I believe expertise lies within the deaf community and those centres of excellence in terms of solutions to this issue.
We see the project lasting for 2 years, it will be evaluated and we want that project to focus on a particular area, areas to show how BSL awareness can be raised and we spoke to Malcolm Bruce, he was very keen it was not just for special schools there are links to BSL users and mainstream schools, but mainstream schools and hearing people in those schools understand BSL, have a raised awareness of it and consider it as another language which they can attain. .
I think a pilot project than enable that link between schools to happen.
. That is all I want to say, but F I want to say thank you to Susan in particular and Brian Lamb who can't be here today, for very effective campaigning I think in this area. Its an area that our minister is keen that we make progress on and hopefully take the project forward, working very closely with the deaf community, signals our intention that we want this to remain a high profile issue and funding the pilot, we want to look at what we can do nationally taking those lessons from that project. Thank you {applause}
SUSAN DANIELS: Thank you very much. I think as Rosie referred to its very much the case that the whole of this initiative arose from the meeting that we had with the Prime Minister back last year. Just shows effectiveness of those parliamentary questions. We were surprised when Gordon Brown actually responded to Malcolm Bruce to say we would be happy to meet with a delegation of sign language users, so the initiative that Hardip is talking about has come from that parliamentary question.
The tender will be circulated via UKCoD if you don't receive it please do contact Jonathan who will put it out there through the UKCoD membership. As you heard from Hardip there will be an opportunity to bid and have to be in by July, I think the expectation is that there will be a lot of collaboration going on across the sector to make sure that there is a jigsaw is put together in terms of provision.
. Okay the next speaker is Bill Petchey from TAG who will be talking about the campaign around telecommunication. Bill.
BILL PETCHEY: Thank you Susan.
. Good evening every one. My name is Bill Petchey I am speaking to you tonight in my capacity as vice chairman of TAG. For those that don't know TAG is a charitable consortium dedicated to improving communications of broad classic services for deaf people I use the word "deaf" in its broadest sense a sense we all understand tonight.
The members of TAG include all of the major deaf organisations, the aim has always been to provide single point of contact and a single voice from the deaf would to government and regulators on the pockets of communication broadcasting. TAG was set up in 1986. It is continuing to celebrate its 21st anniversary year, we like to do things in a modern time.
So much for the introduction. .
My aim tonight is to tell you about TAG's latest campaign from modernisation of telecommunications services special rely services for deaf people, what is wrong wit Typetalk you might say, opinions different on that, the thing is that Typetalk does what its required to do byelaw and not a lot more.