2
In early 2007, Signature (formerly CACDP) and the LSC in the North West, came together to try to increase the number of people learning BSL. As well as being a worthwhile end in itself, it was hoped that this increase would have the knock-on effect of growing the numbers of those who were either proficient bilingual communicators or interpreters. Signature and the LSC therefore invited a group of local agencies in the region to help with this, highlighting potential issues and offering potential solutions.
The LSC and the Partnership data highlighted a number of worrying statistics.
In the north west, 25% of those who are not in education, employment or training, are people with learning difficulties and disabilities and a proportion of these were from the Deaf Community. There was also a decline in the number of individuals taking up British Sign Language qualifications and dropout rates for deaf students were higher than for their hearing counterparts.
These were issues that needed to be tackled and they could not be tackled in isolation. The support mechanisms that were needed to help students overcome the barriers to Further Education were not merely isolated to colleges, but had both roots and implications for schools, universities and the job market.
Clearly some in depth research was needed, so, on 22 November Signature, in collaboration with the North West Partnership, held Bridging the Access
Gap . This one-day research conference explored the barriers faced by deaf students in Further Education. The conference, held at the Radisson
Edwardian in Manchester, was attended by over 150 delegates. Many delegates took the time to respond to the conference questionnaires, talk to members of the North West Partnership and to offer comments from the platform. As a result, a wealth of information and informed opinion was collected.
This information was fed back to the Partnership and will be used as the basis of something much larger and stronger: a long-term research project, which will identify the barriers to Further Education and help promote solutions. This

3 is of paramount importance because, in order to create a truly inclusive
Further Education system, there needs to be an increase in British Sign
Language qualifications, there needs to be a change in drop out rates for deaf students and there needs to be more deaf students in post-16 education.
These issues are not only being addressed in the north-west. The outcomes from this project will be fed into the national LSC, where further discussions and debates are already taking place.
This conference should not be the only of its kind, but the first of its kind. In order to achieve the changes that are essential in Further Education, the
Partnership needs the ongoing support and input from all of those who were kind enough to give up their Saturday on a cold November day.
The opinions expressed in these proceedings are personal to the contributors and do not reflect Signature policy.

Contents
Clark Denmark
Tessa Padden
Brian Kokoruwe
Stuart Moore
Andy Owen
Genevieve Isherwood
Jim Edwards
4
7
11
15
19
23
28
4

5
Currently Clark Denmark is at University of Central Lancashire as Senior
Lecturer and Project Leader of FDTL’s BSL: QED project. He has been part of the University of Bristol’s Centre for Deaf Studies teaching team, when the first taught course in Deaf Studies in Britain was started in
1992, he taught primarily in the field of sign language, sign language teaching, Deaf History and Deaf Politics. He is one of the very few sign language teacher trainers in a British university. He covers both undergraduate and post-graduate teaching.
In 1985 he started at University of Durham to set up a new sign language teacher training course. He developed the Certificate course for British
Sign Language Tutors and has been its Director for six years. During the latter years in Durham they expanded the Sign Language Studies to
Advanced Diploma and M.A. level. In January 1991 he moved to British
Deaf Association as its Director of Education and Training and in
October 1992 he moved to University of Bristol’s Centre for Deaf
Studies. In 2004-5 he was on secondment to the British Deaf Association
(BDA)’s ‘BSL Tuition in Deaf People’s Hands’ funded by Department of
Works and Pension. In January 2007, he started with University of
Central Lancashire as is currently doing my MA in Research on ‘Deaf people and E-L earning’ at UCLan.
Deaf teacher training began back in 1979 through the British Deaf Association in conjunction with CACDP. Before this there was no-one in the country providing access for deaf teachers to learn. With this in mind the
Department of Health and Social Security funded a pilot and the wonderful
Dot Miles created a BSL teacher training manual. Before 1979 very few deaf people had the opportunity to be involved in teacher training, despite the fact that many wanted that opportunity. But times were different. The first BSL teacher training course was set up at Durham University and ran from 1985 to
1999. The programme was led by deaf trainers.
Other courses followed, for example, in Bristol, whose course began in 1992 and finished in 2001. The Bristol course followed the same theory and ethos

6 and led to a university qualification. The model was used in Europe as well.
Also at this time, there were various establishments, such as Further
Education colleges, who offered courses of which deaf people could take advantage, but they were mediated by interpreters. So, although Durham and
Bristol had deaf-led courses, most deaf people who wanted to train as teachers had to use interpreters.
Deaf and hearing people learn in a different way. Research has shown that for deaf people learning through English is incredibly difficult, whereas learning numbers and statistics is easier. If we learn in a very different way, one cannot compare the learning styles of deaf learners and hearing learners. The terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘integration’ are much loved by educationalists. This is a good thing, but it is important to ask whether deaf learners actually learn in a situation where English is the source language. There is evidence from
Conrad (1976), Kyle&Pullen (1985) and Lynas (1995) that they do not.
The Durham teacher training course was unique because everything was provided in sign language, including the curriculum. Because the material was all devised in BSL it was easier to understand. It was not confusing. It did not have to be translated. Furthermore, there was empathy between the teacher and learner: same theory, same ethos, same learning methods, same backgrounds. There is also evidence that having gone through that style of direct learning people took on board more information, they thrived on it and their ability to learn was enhanced. In the Durham course the pass rates were fantastic, teachers were confident in their teaching and they knew what they were doing because they had gone through proper quality training.
Why do deaf people have problems learning English? It is not that deaf people are not interested in learning English. Evidence from Deaf People in
Communities suggests that deaf people want to learn English. The graph below is from 1999, but things have not changed greatly-Deaf people want to learn.

7
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Current/recent learners
Planning
To learn
No intention
To learn
Deaf
Hearing
There are, however, some concerns going forward. The confidence level of deaf teachers is sliding. The demands are changing. It was hard in the past, but it is getting harder and confidence levels are falling. Everyone, including deaf people, now need to undergo teacher training to teach in Further
Education. The demands on deaf teachers undertaking this course are huge.
Furthermore, although higher-level training is out there, the entry criteria are stringent. You must have English and Maths at certain levels, perhaps even a
C grade at GCSE level. As previously mentioned, learning English is difficult for many deaf people. This is a huge concern. Many deaf people are dropping out or loosing their jobs and this is having a huge impact on confidence levels.
In conclusion, courses delivered in English, the new teacher training requirements and stringent entry requirements on courses all have potentially problematic effects and these are already being felt. The standard of teaching is slipping because experienced teachers are leaving the profession and fewer deaf people have the opportunity to train. This is a situation that will have to be rectified.

8
Tessa Padden has been a BSL teacher for nearly 20 years and a BSL teacher-trainer for 15. She is the Deaf child of Deaf parents and mother of a Deaf son and a hearing daughter. She is trilingual in Irish Sign
Language (her native language), BSL and English. She has worked at conferences as an interpreter between ISL, BSL and International Sign and in the media as a TV and video presenter, translator, interpreter and
BSL quality control manager.
She has worked as a teacher and trainer of Deaf people in England,
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Spain, for bodies including the universities of Durham, Bristol, Wolverhampton, City
University London, Queen’s University Belfast, the BDA, RNID, NDCS,
The Irish Deaf Society and Deaf Action (Scotland).
She was founding Chair of the Institute of BSL, and is currently Chair of the BDA’s BSL Academy. In 2004 she completed an MA (with Merit) in
Human Resource Management at the University of Newcastle upon
Tyne. In 2006 she organised a UK Study Tour on Sign Language for the
British Council and Indian Deaf organisations and universities, on which she wrote a report for the British Council and Indian stakeholders. She is currently engaged in research work into BSL teaching and curriculum for the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
The Deaf Studies team at UCLan have identified a need to train more Deaf people as BSL teachers. As part of this a six-month research project has been undertaken to establish if current teacher training qualifications are adequate for BSL teaching; particularly given the unique requirements for trainee deaf teachers of BSL. What has come out of the research is a real sense of worry about standards, lack of equal opportunities and the confidence levels of deaf people. There is a need to get suitably qualified teachers, but with the new regulations this could be a problem.
There were two main aims to the research. Firstly, to ascertain how trainee teachers felt in the past and secondly to discover what they would like to see

9 in the future and what courses they would like to be involved in. Two questionnaires were distributed. One was a short questionnaire and the other questions were discussed over about a three-hour period during a focus group session. There were five focus group meetings and 45 people took part.
The questions asked included: ‘how many years BSL teaching have you had ?’, ‘are you still teaching?’, ‘on a weekly basis how many hours do you teach ?’, ‘where were the venues’, ‘which curriculum did they use’ and finally
‘which qualifications did it led to’. This paper focuses on the results from the short questionnaires.
The research found that there were an awful lot of new teachers. This is because the BDA realised the dearth of teachers was an emergency. There were a lot of people who had been teaching between two and five years, between six and 10 years and between 16 and 20 years. There were a multitude of different reasons people had come into the teaching of BSL. The research also found that the majority of people were still teaching.
Years teaching BSL
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 or less 2-5 6-10 years
11-15 16-20

Teachers were teaching a range of courses including baby signs and deaf awareness. Furthermore, some said they were teaching CACDP level 1 and
2, some said they were teaching communication tactics and some said they were teaching NVQs.
10
Respondents were asked ‘Do you want to be able to teach at higher levels?’ and the majority of people said yes.

11
More interesting findings came from the research. One interesting message was that the majority of people said that they want to be taught by deaf people. Another message was that teachers want to know the linguistics of the language before they actually go into the area of teaching. Teachers also want curriculum teaching, sessions on classroom management and effective teamwork teaching. Teachers also want mentors, deaf people who can specialise in mentoring, not somebody who has a generic mentoring qualification. Respondents want somebody with specific skills in British Sign
Language teaching.
What next? Once all the research has been collated it will be passed on to
UCLan. They will take that information in regard to the teaching of British Sign
Language trainers and use it to create a better curriculum.

12
Born in London, Brian Kokoruwe spent the early part of his life in
Nigeria, West Africa. After becoming deafened following meningitis when 13-years old, he relocated back to England to continue his education and he started in a Partially Hearing Unit in a Comprehensive
School. The meningitis left him unable to walk. With the aid of daily physiotherapist session and extra self-training, he not only regained the ability to walk again, but he was selected to be the Captain of his
School’s Athletics and Cross Country Teams. After leaving school, he went on to college and then to the university where he was also
Athletics and Cross Country Captain. Following his graduation from
University with a Business degree, he undertook various roles, including within the fashion, legal, government and financial corporations. To further develop his career, he undertook a Post-
Graduate Management degree and worked as a Senior Business Analyst for a major Bank taking a leading role in a £100m project.
His interest then swerved into working with deaf people. He spent some time setting up new systems in his local deaf club and worked as a project manager for a research project looking at GPs and Hospital
Health Access Provisions for Deaf People in North-West England. This project won a major award for the Most Useful Consumers’ project in
North-West England and was invited to the House of Parliament to pick up the award. At the end of the project, he set up the UK Disabled
People’s Movement Archive project for a major organisation of disabled people. He is currently the Team Leader at Stockport College with responsibilities for learners with medical conditions, physical and sensory disabilities.
Brian has competed in deaf and non-deaf athletics competitions.
Following the disappointment of GB track and field athletics in the 2001
Deaf Olympics Games in Rome, Brian decided to set up Deaf UK
Athletics. Since then as Director of Deaf UK Athletics, he has established a pool of high calibre GB deaf athletes who have won

13 medals at the European, World and Deaflympic Championships as well as holding world records. Currently, Brian is in his last few months of the PGCE Course and working on his autobiography.
This paper will try to answer the question ‘Why do deaf students drop out of
Further Education’? For me the issue is one of communication. There are several issues that need to be addressed if communication is to be enhanced.
Issues often first occur when a deaf students, who has been to a deaf school, enters mainstream education for the first time. For the deaf person to be able to access the course resources they need interpreters and communication support workers. However, the question is ‘are they prepared to understand how to use interpreters, how to use communication support workers ’? This is debatable, as for many deaf students such support is new to them. So it is very, very important to know how interpreters and communication support workers are used in mainstream education.
Some deaf people rely on sign language as a form of communication. It is difficult for them to look at the interpreter and take notes at the same time, so in the mainstream environment the college should provide a note taker. This means in the classroom the interpreter and note taker working with a deaf person. However, the deaf person also needs some support outside of the classroom. For example, some will need support to complete homework assignments as many deaf people struggle with homework because of the
English requirements.
However, it is not all about support, support, support. When the lecture is finished hearing people socialise and make friends. Because of the lack of opportunity for deaf students to socialise, they drop out of college, they don't have the motivation to carry on because it is all about support, support, support. Support is good, but it limits the opportunity for possible solutions.
Deaf awareness training for the teachers and other students is very important.
This will give hearing students the opportunity to make friends with deaf

14 students. A deaf student has an interpreter and note taker and so lots of hearing students think that they do not need to include them in social activities. Conversely, some deaf students feel uncomfortable with somebody who cannot sign. Offering deaf awareness training is an important way of guarding against this because hearing students will learn that the interpreter is not a ‘friend’ but a professional. There is still a need to include the deaf person in social activities. It will also give hearing students an opportunity to break the ice and socialise with deaf people.
It is important to encourage social integration. In a mainstream environment it is very important for the communication support worker, from the beginning, to encourage deaf students to make friends with non-deaf students. This will give the deaf person an opportunity to share problems in a classroom environment. When the deaf student is by themselves, other problems that come up through the day discourage them from continuing with education.
Social integration is therefore important.
It is also important for the college to have regular reviews with deaf students to identify problems as soon as possible, and to come up with solutions.
These need to be more than once a year; otherwise you run the risk of the student dropping out. In a similar vein, the college needs to really listen to deaf learners because sometimes deaf students will not want to admit to problems straight away.
Colleges also need to praise achievements and commitments. Praising deaf students for their commitment may give them extra motivation to carry on with the course. If a student is doing very well and nothing is said they may slip into negative thinking. So praise and congratulations will make them feel they are doing something worthwhile. Encouragement can also come in the form of deaf role models. At the moment in colleges they are very few. Where are they? It is important for colleges to encourage deaf people to become teachers in order to give deaf people the opportunity to say, ‘this is the person I would like to be
’.

Everything is all about communication; to communicate ideas with deaf students and share everything positive and negative. This is what will make the difference.
15

16
Stuart Moore is a Policy Adviser for Equality Challenge Unit. He works on a range of projects connected with promoting equality and diversity in higher education, specialising in disability. Prior to joining ECU,
Stuart Moore worked at London Transport, the Metropolitan Police
Service and the Home Office before joining the Civil Service Capability
Group of the Cabinet Office in 2005, initially as a Diversity Policy
Support Adviser, and latterly as their Diversity Networks Coordinator.
During this period he provided policy support to the Civil Service
Diversity Champions' Network, and assisted with development and delivery of the 'Delivering a Diverse Civil Service – A 10 Point Plan' and the Cabinet Office Diversity Action Plan. He also assisted in the coordination of the Civil Service Diversity and Equality Awards 2007, wrote the Cabinet Office Disability Toolkit and was chair of the Disability in the Cabinet Office (DisCO) staff network. He has a Certificate in
Humanities from the Open University.
The Equality Challenge Unit was introduced in 2001 to promote equality for staff employed in the higher education sector. In 2006 our remit was extended to cover students. It is an intensive project of research and provides practical guidance and support across all equality areas. ECU is funded by the four UK higher education funding councils for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland and Universities UK and GuildHE.
Within the UK there are six legally protected equality categories, these are: gender; race; disability; religion; sexual orientation and age. In regard to equality for disabled people, the main legislation is the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995, which was drastically revised through the 2005 DDA.
This legislation covers all aspects of employment, provision of goods, facilities and services, provision of education, sale and letting of premises and transport.
Tackling discrimination and promoting equality for disabled people cannot be achieved by one or two things alone it requires the involvement of the whole organisation. This includes commitment from senior management to drive

17 forward the change process and a willingness amongst all staff to learn, adapt and ultimately impress change through promoting disability equality.
The disability equality duty was introduced as part of the 2005 Act and from
2006 all public-sector organisations in HE institutes have responsibility to respond to the duty. In addition, public authorities are subject to specific duties. This includes the obligation to produce a Disability Equality Scheme, which amongst other things sets out the steps which they need to take to comply with the general disability equality duty.
What is known about deaf students in higher education is that in 2006/7 just over 3,000 students in the UK were recognised as deaf or hearing impaired.
Although the Equality Challenge Unit advises on policy and practice in regard to disability equality, the projects and research ECU has been undertaking could be of benefit to deaf or hearing-impaired students.
The Equality Challenge Unit, along with the Higher Education Academy and
Action on Access, forms the Disability Equality Partnership. The Equality
Challenge Unit provides a focus on legislation, while the Higher Education
Academy enhances the student environment and focuses on learning and assessment. Action on Access includes widening the participation aspect and promotes access to Higher Education for disabled students. The Disability
Equality Partnership brings the three organisations together to provide a comprehensive, coordinated service to embed disability equality in all aspects of higher education. During 2008 the work of the Disability Equality
Partnership has included road-show events promoting research that has been conducted in the higher education sector. These relate to the themes of inclusive teaching, an inclusive curriculum for signing and barriers to assessment.
One of these road shows is conducting research into the experiences and outcomes of disabled students in Higher Education. There is a project in which the researchers use a range of methodologies to involve disabled students, including deaf and hearing-impaired students. Bridget, a deaf arts

18 student said there was poor audio quality and this was recognised by the lecturers; however, they felt there was not much they could do to improve the situation. It got worse when visiting lecturers gave lectures, Bridget says, they tend to show slides and because the projector is in the middle of the room, they are standing behind it and not speaking to the audience directly. The importance of this type of perspective is why the Equality Challenge Unit considers the involvement of disabled students to be particularly vital.
They are best positioned to advise on the barriers they face and what needs to be done to address these barriers.
The Equality Challenge Unit and the Higher Education Academy are collaborating on a project that focuses on furthering the involvement of disabled students in the creation and implementation of institutional practice and procedure. This project will continue until August 2009. The Equality
Challenge Unit are working with a group of seven institutions, six in England and one in Wales, and this project will ultimately produce guidance. In this project the Equality Challenge Unit will be looking for Higher Education institutions to develop a range of accessible and inclusive involvement strategies that can recognise the diversity of all students and staff, particularly those who may be disabled.
In 2006 the Equality Challenge Unit produced guidance for academic staff on disability legislation. This guidance aimed to promote the social model of disability and to provide practical advice on how to address possible barriers in all areas related to their academic institute and life cycle. The equality issues for disabled students are generally related to a one-size-fits-all delivery style and the fact that often adjustments for disabled students are not considered at the preparation stage by the academic staff. This is a failure.
In this project the Equality Challenge Unit has been developing guidance in conjunction with the Association of Managers in Students’ Unions (AMSU) and the National Union of Students (NUS). This guidance provides further information and examples of inclusive practice within students’ unions in response to research undertaken on equality and diversity issues undertaken

19 in 2007. This will hopefully ensure that disability issues are considered at the planning stage.
The impetus to create this guidance resulted from an acknowledgement that although our educational institutions have been required to work transparently to meet further legislative demands in relation to equality, there has been a lack of clarity about how equality legislation applies to student unions. Section
5 of this guidance will provide practical guidance and advice for unions on how to communicate with deaf students. An inclusive communication strategy is a critical element in promoting equality and encouraging students to feel they are fully represented and supported by the union.
The Equality Challenge Unit recognises that the student audience is vitally important and anticipating their needs is paramount in order to build accessibility into all forms of communication. The Equality Challenge Unit is committed to achieving equality for all staff and students. More information about our projects can be accessed at our website www.ecu.ac.uk

20
Andy was the founder-secretary of the Association of Communication
Support Workers, set up early in 2007 to promote the CSW profession and provide support and recognition. He moved to the position of Chair earlier this year. He is the webmaster for ACSW and administers the online forum. He writes ACSW resources such as literature for CSWs in examinations.
He is a CSW, working with Deaf students on various courses at 6th Form and University level. He presents a regular short-course for 6th form tutors on how to teach and include Deaf students in their classes, and also trains CSWs on voicing-over skills and the role of the CSW in examinations.
Andy teaches theology to Deaf people as the leader of a large Deaf church group at a central London Baptist Church, and leads the team of signers who interpret all the public meetings of the church. He has authored two books: 'Signs of Life', a dictionary of religious signs, and
'Not Hearers Only', a manual for a practical ministry for Deaf people in churches. He is currently writing two other books; one is a modified
English version of an old Baptist doctrinal work and the other is a book on voicing-over for CSWs.
The title of this paper is ‘when barriers become challenges’. It will explore the importance of appropriately qualified Communication Support Workers
(CSW), the barriers to becoming a CSW, the barriers to staying a CSW and how the situation can be improved for both the CSW and the deaf student. This paper will hopefully demonstrate that CSWs and their deaf coworkers can help to transform barriers into challenges.
There are certain qualifications that a CSW will undertake and skill sthey will want to enhance. There is the CSW qualification but courses are hard to find.
CSWs also need signing qualifications. There are lots of CSWs who need to enhance their signing skills. ACSW want CSWs who are good signers and also have interpreting skills. There are barriers here because there are some

21
CSWs who are working at level 2 but cannot access an interpreting course until they get to level 4. ACSW would like to see interpreting tuition delivered to level 2 students. CSWs also need a deaf studies ’ qualification. These are now becoming easier to find but there is no joined-up national map. Each institution acts independently. There is also the need for English qualifications. This is very important because CSWs are working in two different languages, but to have good interpretation skills, they need to be very strong in one language. CSWs also need soft skills, for example in team working.
There are barriers to becoming a CSW. Historically, people with a level 2 signing certificate were able to become CSWs and they very quickly learned how to interpret on the job. They were given mentors within organisations, they were matched appropriately with deaf students and in some services were given training. Because they worked with deaf people they were then able to access NVQ level 3 BSL. There are obvious flaws in that method, and deaf people have experienced problems, however, that method existed because it was hard for people to access an NVQ course because they did not work with deaf people. Now the situation is a little different. The bar is being raised and many services recruit at level 3. That is good for many reasons. One reason is that deaf people get to work with CSWs who are better quality signers. Another reason is that services which recruit level 3 signers only add credibility to the service. Also, this raises the standard of
CSWs nationally. However, with that improved situation comes a problem.
There are a huge number of level 2 signers who cannot become CSWs.
Some services get around this by employing level 2 signers as signing learning support assistants, then encourage them to study for NVQ level 3 although at ACSW we don't have evidence of this happening on a wide scale.
In addition there are barriers to staying a CSW. Historically the role of CSW has been seen as a natural step towards becoming an interpreter. This means that when a CSW becomes experienced and skilful with BSL they disappear.
This is really a scourge of CSW services and results in constant recruitment programmes and CSWs are not being committed to their work because

22 they have another job in view. There are also problems with low wages.
ACSW are contacted from time to time over low pay issues and it is a problem because many CSWs work full-time then have freelance jobs in the evening.
Job satisfaction is also an issue that crops up. The CSW role can be a lonely role, it can be tedious and sometimes demanding and that impacts on job satisfaction.
The situation can be improved in a number of ways. There are a great many
CSWs working at level 2. Some are very experienced and very good at their jobs, they interpret every working day, but there is no interpreting course for them. For example, this means that many CSWs do not get access to any voiceover tuition until they have passed level 4.
Teamwork is very important too. CSWs can provide a better service to deaf students if they work as part of a team. There are very good freelance CSWs out there doing an exceptional job. However, some CSWs have taken on board the outdated interpreter misconception, which is you arrive, you interpret clinically and skillfully, and leave. There is a better model of CSW service emerging and some services use it now. This model means that a team of CSWs have a timetable composed of contact time with the student, language support time, interpreting preparation time, resource preparation time, co-working time, pastoral support and curriculum reinforcement. This mix engenders a loyal team, able to benefit and learn from each other and providing a cohesive service to the deaf student and tutor alike. It also fosters a collegiate relationship between teaching staff and CSWs, as well as boosting job satisfaction.
With this in place the team can then focus on two other areas which are important: transition and retention. When a new deaf student arrives at a post-
16 institution the college needs to know how to help them through the transition so they feel more comfortable. The team can also focus on retaining that student.

23
Specific training is also needed. Even if a CSW course is not available, a
CSW should receive training on many issues. This could be in the language development of deaf young people, in how to adopt transmission to take account of language need, in how a sound field system works and how to clean a hearing-aid. Then there is the emotional, cognitive and social impact of deafness on young people. All of these things will help us in our work.
ACSW is trying to make a difference on a great many fronts. If we can reinforce the role of CSW as a career in itself, not just as a stepping stone, we will come a long way. It is not ‘us’ and ‘them’, CSWs are not professionally distant from the students, they should be working as part of a team.
CSWs must develop a mindset of partnership in many areas and our deaf coworkers must support us in our aims. That will engender a team ethos to change barriers into challenges because challenges are easier to face.

24
Genevieve Isherwood suffers from a bilateral progressive hearing loss that was first diagnosed when she was 17 and studying for her A
–
Levels. She was able to complete her studies with the use of hearing aids only, gaining four A-B grades.
In the following year Genevieve’s hearing began to decrease further so that by the time she started her Law Degree, she realised she would need additional help to hear in Lectures and Seminars. She received
DSA funding for a portable loop system and a note taker. She says that her university provided amazing support and was always one step ahead in making sure that she was in no way disadvantaged. She played a full role in university life, becoming the Chairwoman of Aberystwyth
Conservative Future and graduating this summer with a 2:1 LLB Law
Degree.
Genevieve is now studying the Legal Practice Course at a College of
Law in Chester. Genevieve says that the course is focussed on oral skills and communication, and as such, has been quite a challenge, especially as Genevieve’s hearing continues to decrease. It is now very difficult for her to discriminate all speech and she can no longer hold a conversation on the telephone. But, for every obstacle she faces, she says she feels more determined than ever to establish a career in a profession that requires the skill to listen. As she puts it, ‘it is possible to achieve anything with the correct equipment and support’.
Genevieve Isherwood tells her personal story.
I grew up with an awareness of the issues surrounding hearing loss as members of my family wear hearing aids. My father wore two analogue aids when I was young and now relies on one digital aid; both my grandfathers wore hearing aids, one for damage to the ear drum and the other for damage that may have been caused during the Second World War. At the time I received my hearing aid my father and sister also received two digital hearing aids. My audiologist came to the conclusion that our family hearing loss,

25 excluding my maternal grandfather, has been caused by nerve damage to the ear. Unfortunately, I have the worst hearing loss in my family, and a loss which is continuing to decline.
I was 17 when I was diagnosed, I am 23 now. Up until then I had very good hearing and I was slow to recognise my own hearing loss. When I had just begun studying for A levels, during a normal conversation outside the classroom I realised I couldn't understand every word being spoken. I returned home that evening and spoke with my mother of my concerns. When my first hearing test in Wrexham confirmed I had bilateral hearing loss and would need a hearing aid, I was horrified.
The first thing that struck me was how ugly it would make me look. I truly believed I was the only young person with a hearing aid.
Receiving the first aid was strange but after a couple of weeks I began to rely on it when listening to the teachers. The method of teaching at this stage was very much vocal and we would carefully write down any relevant information as opposed to everything being written on the whiteboard.
After two months I noticed that my hearing had deteriorated further: not only were the lessons becoming more difficult to hear, I noticed simple things like watching television had become a challenge. I sat a second hearing test which confirmed it.
With a keen interest in law I decided to develop a career as a solicitor. Whilst I was unsure about the future of my hearing, I was determined to succeed in a profession which relies heavily on communication and oral skills. I gained 4 A levels in English Lit, History, Law and Art with grades A to B and won a place at University to study a law degree. I began my law degree as a single mother and my hearing had deteriorated further. I knew my degree was not going to be easy as the legal profession is competitive.
Four months prior to beginning my degree I met with the university disabilities officer who gave me a needs assessment for Disabled Students’ Allowance. I

26 received funding for an FMGE transmitter, a note taker and a laptop computer to access materials that I was unable to hear in my lectures. I felt so at ease as the disabilities officer was on my side, he provided excellent support and advice. The university even provided me with a vibrating doorbell, fire alarm, and baby alarm in the flat I rented from them. They also arranged special evacuation arrangements.
On starting my course I was informed there were approximately 60 deaf or hard-of-hearing students studying at the university. It made me realise that I was not the only one facing the challenges of hearing loss in higher education.
All my tutors questioned me after lectures to ensure I had understood everything.
Unfortunately, I experienced problems from time to time with my hearing equipment and I was too embarrassed to interrupt, I would sit there and persevere. I had become totally reliant on the loop system and when I used it I forgot I had hearing loss. It took me a while to adjust to accepting notes made by a note taker. It reduced my independence when I could no longer produce notes word for word.
In my second year I advised my disability officer that I couldn't hear in seminars. He was quick to respond, and with the remainder of my funding ordered a conference system involving three handheld microphones to be used.
By the third year I was elected as chairwoman for Aberystwyth Conservative
Future. It was a great opportunity and allowed me to take charge of my hearing loss. I arranged for committee meetings to take place in quiet venues and used my FW Genie loop system to hear. We organised successful social events, including an Amnesty dinner where we had members of the
Parliament for Wales and the Welsh Assembly, and held political groups.

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Each year as my hearing continues to decrease my needs change. Over the last six years I have slowly lost enjoyment in things I took for granted; I can no longer communicate by telephone, I watch television with subtitles, I cannot socialise properly with friends unless it is one to one, and I cannot go to the cinema because there is no loop system. However, I feel fortunate that I am experiencing hearing loss during a time of great technological advance, such as Email, text, and loop system. I believe that with the correct funding and education for hard-of-hearing persons, much could be done to reduce unnecessary barriers to education.
I am currently studying for a diploma in professional legal practice. This is a vocational qualification. Three months before I began the course, I made another application for Disabled Students’ Allowance. I received a letter one month later, from the University Assessment Centre, explaining they would assess me in October 2008, my course began on September 1st. After a call from my mother, they offered to assess me in late August. I did not receive my new equipment until October. Fortunately, I have my MR Genie and seminar microphone system, if I hadn't had this equipment, I would have considered dropping out of the course because I would have foreseen falling too far behind.
The course itself is very detailed and is a selection of i-tutorials, workshops, textbook reading, additional reading, podcasts, paper exercises and oral and written assessments. I experience great difficulty with i-tutorials as these are online lectures, I listen to them with a neck loop provided with DS funding.
The workshops comprise 20 students divided between four tables and are 2½ hours long. It is really difficult for me to hear due to background noise and my microphone systems have not been working.
The college does not have a disability officer so I had to manage my own needs. I have explained to them I do not know how to assemble my equipment as it is quite technical and they replied it was my equipment and
I should know how to work it. Although they did manage to assemble it for me in the end, it has repeatedly failed and no alternative support was offered.

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They have told me to contact the suppliers to have it fixed. Following my complaint the college agreed to contact the suppliers on my behalf. I-tutorials, role plays and podcasts have not been transcribed for me despite my asking.
Worst of all, I discovered reception did not have a portable loop system available I have to work hard to catch up on missing areas because of these barriers. I am awaiting a formal reply from my college.
I hope my story will show how things can work out for hard-of-hearing students. Equally, you will see how ignorant some people are about hearing loss. Not hearing does not mean giving up on life. We must bridge the access gap and it's thanks to campaigning and practical actions by charities like CACDP that communication between deaf and hearing people will be greatly advanced.

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Jim Edwards joined CACDP as its Chief Executive early in 2007. He is leading the charity's efforts to see a society in which deaf people have full access. A strong family influence took Jim into the field and started a career that has lasted for more than 25 years. He has a strong focus on rights and inclusion and in line with that ethos has pioneered a range of initiatives, and major developments across the UK. Jim has worked hard to raise public and political awareness of deafness and deaf people.
What is the access gap? Is there one? How do we define it and what can we do about it? These are big questions. Some of the biggest in fact. They are questions of principle, questions of practicality and questions of equality. And though the questions are common to all deaf people, the answers are particularly personal and individual.
In the Saturday Guardian in November there was an article about a young computer software engineer called Xander Hurley. Xander’s story seems to illustrate exactly some of those questions. Xander chose to enrol on a software engineering degree course at university. Like all students, Xander attended lectures and seminars, did his assignments and read to make sure he understood what he was being taught. His hard work was rewarded with a degree and now he has a career as a software engineer.
Why is this relevant you might ask?
Xander is deaf and for his course he had to rely heavily on lipreading English.
One-to-one he had no problems at all, but in a group context, in a massive lecture hall, with the lecturer sometimes10 or 20 meters away walking up and down, turning to write things on the board and tapping his pen on his teeth while talking, Xander estimates he didn’t get one tenth of the information everyone else in the room was getting.

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Without the context and explanation from lectures, his attempts to catch up by reading were of little success and Xander had to repeat his second year. Then repeat it again. It was only when funding was made available for interpreter and notetaking support that Xander excelled and completed his degree. This story is repeated time and time again, across the country, in schools, colleges and universities
Xander is to be congratulated. His determination outweighed the frustrations and he finished his course because many do not. We know that in the North
West drop-out rates for deaf learners are significantly higher than for those learners who aren’t deaf. And we know that across the UK the achievement rate of deaf people in education is just a little over half of the achievement rate their hearing counterparts enjoy. That’s simply not sustainable, if we are to achieve our aspirations of equality for deaf people in our society.
There are many issues of equality for deaf people on which many of us have campaigned for years with varying degrees of success, so just how important is access to education in that broader context? In the North West a study found that deaf people were more likely than ever to seek access to postcompulsory education and training.
RNID told us in 2002 that the unemployment rate for hearing people was five percent, whilst 19% of deaf people were unemployed. That rises to 28% for deaf people with minority ethnic backgrounds. And 57% of this is long-term unemployment.
We know that the average income for those deaf people who do work is below the national average. And in his report to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills last December, Lord Leitch noted “Skills and qualifications are a key determinant of income.” Completion of a degree is critical for a deaf students, because deaf graduates earn 83% more than their peers who do not graduate. So, your income and therefore standard of living are directly affected by the education you receive.

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A deaf person in this country is far more likely to be unemployed, or underemployed than a hearing peer. That has far-reaching consequences. For example, (and here I pick just one area from the many I might have chosen) a
Report to the Northern Ireland Government found that “Unemployed people are twice as likely to have a potential psychological issue than those people in work.” So it comes as no surprise to learn that, with a higher unemployment rate amongst deaf people, there is also higher incidence of mental health issues than there is in the general population.
We know all this, and with the conclusions that we might draw from this information, it is all to clear that education is the key to addressing the wider social inclusion and equality issues for deaf people in the UK.
For deaf people there is still a tangible gap in access to education and training, even after the government has spent ten years investing heavily in this area. So is it simply a question of funding? The answer is yes- and no.
Funding is available through all educational establishments to provide support specific to the needs of each deaf learner. It’s true that funding is not always easily accessible, and not every deaf learner and access officer is aware of the support they are able to access, so many weeks, months, or even years of coping with frustration, battling against budgets and bureaucracy can happen before the right access support is put in place.
Funding alone does not bridge the access gap. It enables learners to buy the materials to build that bridge, but what if the materials are unavailable? There is, of course, a lack of trained professionals. But without a full understanding of the issue will providing funding for each individual case ever really solve the problem?
Institutions of all varieties are better at throwing money at an issue than they are at raising awareness. We know from an RNID study of 400 employers with deaf staff that although 33% had made physical changes to their premises to promote inclusion, only 3-of 400 firms-had invested money in

32 raising institutional awareness of deaf people. It is nonsensical to think that any institution should try to plug gaps in communication without first understanding what those gaps are.
Recently with initial teacher training there has been a new minimum core, designed specifically to increase educational standards in further education.
This new policy may well deliver on its aims. An unfortunate and, of course, unintended consequence of the new policy is that it could actually preclude a deaf person from becoming a teacher at all. The North West partnership is working with LLUK to understand and resolve this issue but would it have happened at all if the policy makers had been aware of these issues for deaf people and had the information they need to make and justify their decisions?
Defining the problem is always the first step to finding a solution. Or, to put it as one of our earlier speakers did, to turning a problem into a mere challenge.
That is why the task that the North West Partnership has been set is so important. If we can gather and interpret robust data on those communication gaps, then the arguments for what needs to be done will make themselves and action must follow.
This research cannot be gathered in isolation. Neither should it be carried out by disparate groups in a fragmented fashion. It’s critical that we channel the expertise and experience that is in this room, not just today but over the lifetime of the research. It is also critical that once we understand the issue fully, we share that understanding with education providers and those planning to meet the demand for classroom support services. Our research findings need to bring about co-ordinated and sustainable action. Action informed by best practice. Best Practice created by knowledge and research underpinned by expertise.
As the economic climate changes, government will change policy and funding priorities to adapt to the situation in which we find ourselves. As that happens there is a danger that deaf people will again be overlooked and find themselves further disadvantaged. As a society we need to make sure that

33 doesn’t happen. We need to make sure those drafting policy have available to them the robust information that enables and encourages them to make sure that any impact of a policy on deaf people is a positive impact. Only then will full equality for deaf people in education stop being an aspiration and start becoming a reality.