The London Post has reported that support for deaf children in Tower Hamlets, a borough in London, could be slashed by half, with staff numbers also cut in half. The National Deaf Children Society has said the proposals “could devastate deaf education” across the borough.
Extract:
More than 500 families across Tower Hamlets have been left fearing for their deaf children’s futures by planned council cuts.
Tower Hamlets Council is aiming to slash its Support for Learning Service by half, reducing staff numbers from 28.5 to just 14.5 from April next year, and is now consulting on the matter.
The service supports thousands of children with special educational needs and disabilities, including 519 who are deaf.
The council’s Teachers of the Deaf, who play a vital role in a deaf child’s life, are among those targeted by the cuts. Under the plans, their numbers could be reduced from 6.8 to just three, leaving each teacher responsible for visiting and supporting more 170 deaf children in schools across the borough.
Read the full story here.
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Ruth Rose
November 26, 2020
I have copied the and submitted as a piece of evidence to the parliamentary Select Committee currently looking for evidence about employment opportunities for disabled people. I pointed out that these children will end up as unemployed, blamed on their deafness but really because they lacked proper standards of education as a result of Council discrimination against them.
Fred Trull
November 26, 2020
Are you >sure< that there are 500 deaf kids in Tower Hamlets?
Not wanting to be difficult but that seems to be an unfeasibly large number.
Penelope Beschizza
November 27, 2020
I worked in a small part-time BSL teaching role with the parents of Tower Hamlets deaf children 1993-2003. The vast majority were from Bangladesh families where many marriages were close cousins and relatives.
Like other areas as Bradford, the statistics of deaf & disabled children born in close knit communities are 4 times the national average. To be honest there has been much good work happening making ethnic – any close knit community- communities aware of the need to reduce ‘too close relative’ marriages.
Out of respect to Asian communities, this trait also happened with my husband’s Italian mountainous village community for 200 years – deaf babies born every generation due to cousin marriages.