Staying Connected –living with hearing loss, mine or yours
In March 2016 West Oxford U3A organised a sell-out, highly
successful, study day on Living with Hearing Loss held in the
Chakrabarti Lecture Theatre at Oxford Brookes University. It was
a ground breaking venture in that it addressed a challenge, age-related
deafness, that faces most of our members, either directly or indirectly,
yet was a subject that had hitherto been ignored. It further
utilised various ways of assisting communication with those who have
hearing loss in order that they continue to be included in conversation
and had the ability to understand each lecture. West Oxford U3A has
made available details on how to organise a similar study day for other
U3As to follow suit and these are listed below.
- Locate a local venue that has an induction loop system
already installed. These are not so easy to find so be prepared
to investigate hiring a portable loop to be placed around the perimeter
of the hall. Health and safety issues apply would apply though –
people may trip over the wires, so take precautions. Good places
to look are educational establishments, community centres, conference
centres, hotels.
- Provide a British Sign Language interpreter
if you have profoundly deaf people applying. These are extremely
expensive so investigate if you have one already amongst your
membership and ask if they would offer their services.
- Apply to the many charity organisations for the deaf that
exist and request sufficient copies of their free information
literature. Search on google for the list. We used Action
for Hearing Loss, Tinnitus, local Social Workers for the deaf, National
Association for Deaf people, Hearing Link, Connevans (for list of
products available to help deaf people). There are many others,
so apply to those specialising in the areas you want to emphasise at
your day.
- Estimate your budget
based on the room hire + speaker fees (+/or travel expenses) +
administration costs (don’t under-estimate these), lunches if the cost
is to be inclusive then divide by the number of seats available in your
hall. This is the cost per person to attend. Organise
lunches, tea and coffee.
- Include partners of deaf people within your flyer and application form. This
is most important because they are ones who are living with the effects
of deafness too and need support and tips on how to communicate.
- Try to break even on costs
and apply to your local area U3A network for possible financial
backing. West Oxford U3A committee funded the entire day
themselves but Thames Valley Network offered to cover any
shortfall.
- Search for other donors
towards running costs. Not easy but maybe your speakers will not
charge a fee so that is a great contribution towards reducing running
costs. This was our situation and we gave all speakers a ‘thank
you’ present instead. Be prepared to pay travel expenses though.
- Speakers – we
used a private audiologist, but the NHS could also be approached, to
talk about age-related deafness, tinnitus and help available. A
speaker from Hearing Link to cover the emotional and social side and
how they can help. A social worker for the
deaf. And a very experienced teacher of adults in the skills of
lip reading. But you can tailor make your day to the areas in
which YOU want to concentrate.
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