The NSPCC has launched a survey with Limping Chicken, to find out if deaf adults know where they can report concerns for a child or seek help.
The move comes after the charity discovered that very few deaf adults contact the NSPCC helpline via email, text, online or SignVideo if they are worried about a child or need advice.
Click here to go to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NSPCCsurvey
It is anonymous and includes questions signed in British Sign Language asking respondents whether they know who they can contact if they have a concern about a child.
It also asks how Deaf people would prefer to get in touch with the NSPCC helpline’s trained child protection professionals.
The NSPCC’s Head of Child Protection Operations John Cameron said:
“Supporting deaf adults to care for and protect children is really important to the NSPCC. We want to understand if deaf adults are aware of the help we are able to offer, whether that’s advice in looking after the own children, or if they were worried about another child.
“We know that deaf adults can often feel excluded from services available to them, as they’ve not been made aware of what they offer or how to use them. Research also indicates that deaf children are more vulnerable to abuse due to communication barriers – we need to stop this and enable them to ask for help.
“Through this survey we hope to gain a good knowledge of why deaf adults are choosing not to contact us and importantly how we can improve our services to ensure they do.”
If you have concerns about a child or want advice you can contact the NSPCC for free 24 hours a day, by calling 0808 800 5000, emailing help@nspcc.org.uk, texting 88858, using SignVideo http://www.signvideo.co.uk/news/nspcc-helpline or completing an online reporting form https://www.nspcc.org.uk/Applications/Forms/HelplineConcern/the-helpline-online-form.aspx
You can choose to remain anonymous if you wish.
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Linda Richards
May 22, 2014
I commend the NSPCC for their review. So many organisations have done the ‘access’ thing and crossed it off their list do it’s good to know they’re looking into this.
Three points about making contact through SignVideo. It’s good to know VRS services is one of the options for making contact but … It isn’t ‘open 24 hours a day’ and while your call may be anonymous, you are not as the SignVideo interpreter will see you. And… there may not be the opportunity to report bullying or abuse if the school has protective firewalls in place.
As serious cases of child abuse reported in recent (modern) times have all centred around Deaf schools or Deaf organisations with its activities for Deaf children, perhaps the NSPCC should focus its efforts and publicity on those places. Sadly, some Deaf staff at some of those were ‘colluders’ in the process of abuse. Others were inert or fearful of reprisals.
I was talking to a friend recently about the bullying someone experienced at her Deaf school and which still scars her. He took me through the names of the bullies for each school year. I was aghast but also knew some of these names so wasn’t surprised. But what really frightened me was that this school had 5/6 pupils who were the bullies of their year – an average of 10% of all the pupils a year regularly coming off the bullies conveyor belt there. The pupils didn’t or couldn’t say anything for fear of reprisals.
I don’t know if such scars, experience or observations means people will not report for fear of reprisals. The ‘prominence’ of some of those people in the Deaf World must leave the abused or bullied person confused and others must think it’s ‘okay’ because look at where they are in the Deaf world!
The Deaf world is used to contacting hearing organisations. However, I think Deaf people will be unlikely to contact an organisation like the NSPCC about such a ‘taboo ‘ subject because they (the NSPCC) don’t ‘know’ our world. And then what about the people that may get brought in to ‘help’ with uncovering the story?
It’s all very sad really.
Finally, having looked at the BSL version of the survey, I’m afraid to say that what is shown would put some Deaf people off as there are errors in the signs, it isn’t a translation, it hasn’t thought about audience design and, the absence of direct eye contact with either the camera or the relevant sign, renders it inaccessible as it isn’t ‘for’ us.
Now that’s really sad.
SignHealth
May 22, 2014
Brilliant collaboration Limping Chicken and NSPCC. If any of your female readers or children need domestic violence support, we hope they are aware of our DeafHope and Young DeafHope service based in London. http://www.signhealth.org.uk/our-projects/deafhope-projects/
Linda Richards
May 22, 2014
Good to have these links from Signhealth. I guess the other question that comes from this is whether Deaf adults would go to a children’s charity. I must admit that it wouldn’t be my first thought. But that’s what the NSPCC are attempting to find out – and possibly redress the issue of publicity.
Cathy Alexander
May 23, 2014
This is a very important issue, so its good to have it highlighted. The main problem I think, that may have been overlooked is the fact that deaf people do not pick up general conversation from anywhere, like hearing people do, such as on buses, trains and planes; where conversation can be overheard and therefore learnt from.
This gives hearing people a massive advantage that deaf people will never have and therefore we are less privy to the goings on in life and where help and support lie for various problems people encounter. Nor can some deaf people read very well, so vital information is much harder to look up (books/internet) as and when it is required.
So this lack of awareness in the deaf community is no real surprise. It also has to be said that many abusive stories come about because hearing adults have usually overheard screaming, shouting, crying and rowing on a regular basis, usually next door to them, and once again deaf people will never have this kind of “window into abusive behaviour”.
I suspect this is one of the reasons for deaf people not contacting the NSPCC or anyone else in relation to children being badly treated, whether those children are deaf or not. I would say this goes some way to answering this query. After all, you can only report, comment on, explain and verify matters when you have either heard or seen something and overhearing anything is not something deaf people will ever be able to take advantage of.