Deaf4Deaf: Fill in our survey about Deaf people’s counselling needs

Deaf4Deaf is a national counselling service that uses deaf or hearing counsellors who use pure BSL.

Deaf4Deaf work with almost half of the NHS funding boards across the UK, this includes Wales, Scotland, England, Channel Islands and are currently negotiating with Ireland.

This coverage is great news for people who require sign language counselling in all form including ISL, ASL, BSL, SSE and Oral. We are winning the fight and expanding the NHS counselling regions coverage each month.

However, the question is why only half of the NHS regions, what about the rest?

The NHS is split up into regional funding panels that decide on funding applications that is sent from Deaf4Deaf. We have challenged the NHS regions that say “NO” to sign language counselling to explain the rationale behind their decisions.

Their answer is “deaf people don’t need a deaf counsellor they are happy to use interpreters for these sessions.” Their overall feeling is if a deaf person is happy to use an interpreter for most communication areas such as doctors’ appointments, why aren’t they happy to use it in counselling sessions?

Action Plan is Needed

Deaf4Deaf has created an online survey that is in English and BSL videos, there are 9 questions that are asked, and it will take around two minutes to complete.

What is the survey for and why should I complete it?

The survey will used to show that the NHS what deaf people feel they need.

After one week, we have had nearly 1000 responses.

The survey asks other questions including which region you lived in when the NHS application was made.

The survey needs many more people to enter their experiences of using NHS funded counselling.

Why?

• Prove to the NHS that deaf people do care about their mental health
• Prove that mental health issues within the deaf world are not just depression and anxiety, they are more severe
• Show that certain types of counselling simply do not work; for example interpreter and hearing counsellor.

This is an amazing opportunity to come together and help us fight for your rights to receive counselling with a deaf cultured counsellor.

The survey is available by clicking the link below. The survey ends on 30th August:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3MY28MW

For data protection reasons, the answers to this survey are confidential and we do not know who answered the questions.

Our website is https://www.deaf4deaf.com

Self-assessment for NHS funding: https://www.deaf4deaf.com/initial-assessment/

View our counsellors: https://www.deaf4deaf.com/meet-team-english/

We are here to help and hope to make counselling accessible to all.