This year’s Deafblind Awareness Week ran from 24th – 30th June to help people understand more about combined sight and hearing loss.
During Deafblind Awareness Week, Deafblind UK celebrated people living with deafblindness and introduced you to some of the people we support. At Deafblind UK we’re keen to show that people living with sight and hearing loss often have the same interests, emotions and ambitions as people who are not deafblind.
Ricky, 33, is deafblind. He said: “Due to my sight loss and hearing impairment, people often assume that I am asleep, must have learning difficulties, or that I can’t speak for myself. If only these people knew that I am a strong public speaker and educated to postgraduate level! I am also intrigued when people assume that, if I were to date, I would want to date other people with a similar disability. Presumably this is because we could relate to each other, but it’s not to say that we would have anything in common beyond that! I do believe that things can become much better for people like me if society in general is more thoughtful and responsive to feedback about how things can be improved.”
Deafblindness is a combined sight and hearing impairment which affects over 450,000 people in the UK. It doesn’t always mean no sight or hearing, although for some people this is the case. Deafblindness affects everyone differently, some people need to make small changes to the way they go about everyday life and some people will rely on others for communication and getting about.
Nikki Morris, CEO of Deafblind UK said: “Deafblind Awareness Week is an opportunity to let those affected know that we’re here to support them when they’re ready, and we want to help others to be more aware of what people who are living with deafblindness are going through. This year’s campaign is about understanding that being deafblind does not necessarily remove people’s ability to do the things they love. At Deafblind UK, we focus on enabling people to achieve. This could mean supporting them to learn new ways of working, using technology or giving them one to one guiding and communications support.”
As part of Deafblind Awareness Week, we partnered with LAWDIG (Local Authority Workers Disability Action Group) to host a joint webinar for Local Authorities, to help sensory teams understand their legal obligations around deafblindness. The webinar explored what the Care Act 2014 says about deafblindness, what it requires local authorities to do and who is responsible for this. The webinar was a hit and we plan to host more in the future!
Deafblind Awareness Week may be over but there are lots of different ways you can still support us in strengthening awarenss – from sharing social media content to learning how to identify deafblindness in yourselves and others.
Don’t forget to @DeafblindUK on social media when you post so we can like and share your content too!
We support people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland who have both sight and hearing impairments. For support call: 0800 132320 or email: [email protected].
