Hearing impairments
Social work
Social workers are post qualified to work with deaf people providing a service which includes:
- assessment, counselling and support in relation to needs arising from deafness.
- working with families where a child is diagnosed as having a hearing loss.
- addressing the needs of hearing children of deaf parents.
- involvement in the development of integrated and specialist provision as required by the Children Act 1989.
- counselling and support for problems arising from hearing loss as part of the ageing process.
- support to people who are deaf and who have additional disabilities.
- support to people who are deaf and who have mental health problems.
- co-working with, or professional advice to, colleagues from social care, Education, Health, Police, Probation and voluntary agencies.
Support work
Support workers have a wide ranging role and much of their work is with profoundly deaf people whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL). We help people by:
- Provision of information, support and advice on a range of topics such as housing or employment issues.
- Development of social skills through individual and group work.
- Encouragement of self advocacy, where necessary with the support of a sign language interpreter.
- Support offered to help people comment or complain about the service they receive.
- Involvement of consumers in planning services.
Assessment and provision of equipment
Assessment/equipment officers provide a service to deaf and partially hearing people including:
- Assessing a person's need for environmental equipment such as minicoms, fax machines, flashing light doorbells, induction loops and vibrating or flashing baby alarms.
- Arranging provision and installation of environmental equipment.
- Identifying more complex needs, with referral back to social workers. (Equipment Officers are often the first point of contact for new referrals)
- Carrying out registration (if necessary) as deaf or hard of hearing under the classifications required by the Department of Health for the Personal Social Services Local Authority Statistics Register.
Interpreting
The team has one Registered Qualified BSL Interpreter whose responsibility is to:
- provide interpreting support for all deaf people who need to access Walsall Social Care and Supported Housing.
- provide support for people who are Deafblind and require communication support to access services from Walsall Social Care and Supported Housing