Shaun McGarry
The Meteor is a vibrating and inaudible watch for deaf and blind people to find out what the time is. It was developed and manufactured by the Swiss company Alexandravision.
It is very discreet and useful for attending meetings, rather than having a talking watch blaring out the time!
Steve
I am Steve, am 49 and have been totally blind and 80% deaf since 1980.
For the last ten years I’ve been a wheelchair user, having Alstrom syndrome which affects my heart, kidneys, liver and lungs. I also have problems with my back and neck as well as a form of osteoarthritis and nerve pain.
I need a lot of support with communication, having a social life and getting out of my flat.
Continue reading “Why should I have to use my DLA to pay for my care and support?”
Radio’s inaccessibility to deaf people is perhaps one of those facts of life most of us simply accept. But could that be about to change?
I had good hearing until my mid twenties. I used to enjoy listening to the radio, especially dramas, documentaries and current affairs programmes. Since becoming deaf, radio has been inaccessible to me and, although it has never been a big issue for me, I have sometimes missed it.
So I was very interested to read about a project in the United States to make radio accessible for deaf and deafblind people through live text captions. And I was pleased to have the opportunity to put some questions about it to one of the project team on BBC Radio 4’s In Touch programme.
Pyrrhus
I am the appointee for a young Deaf man, who I will refer to as ‘M’, who has autism and additional needs. In January I received his form to complete to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
Days and hours were spent filling it in, reading advice etc and obtaining supporting evidence to ensure a full picture was given of his needs and why he previously received Incapacity Benefit. Finally the day came when it was complete and I sent it by special delivery .
Molly Kearney
When I started at Sense less than a year ago I had very little idea how difficult families find it to get proper educational support for their disabled children. I quickly learned that it is a constant struggle for parents and carers, and for the deafblind children and young people who need this support to get on.
While many stories have been heartbreaking to hear, it’s also been incredibly inspiring to meet families who have fought so hard and won so much for their children.
Continue reading “Proper educational support for deafblind children”
Katie Vecina
Bureaucracy is the punishment for having the gumption to ask for support. Whether we need support from Access to Work, social security benefits, housing or social care, we must lay ourselves bare, on forests-worth of forms and in face-to-face assessments, revealing to a stranger everything about ourselves in the most intimate detail: our deepest, darkest secrets; our medical history; our finances; our relationships; and so on and so forth. We must justify, many times over, why we need the support we are asking for. It is a physically and mentally painful, exhausting, and demeaning process.
Why do we do it? Are disabled people all masochists, hell-bent on inflicting ever greater humiliation and distress upon ourselves? No. We do it, only, when going without the support is even more dehumanising.
Last year, when the Dilnot commission made its recommendations on the funding of care and support, I cautiously welcomed some of those recommendations but expressed concern about what Government would actually do with them. Now that we know more about what the Government intends to do, I’m even more concerned.
The Government will set a cap of £75,000 on the amount any individual will have to pay towards their care and support costs. This cap will be lower for people under retirement age but the announcement on 11 February failed to specify how much lower, except to say it would be £0 for anyone with care and support needs before the age of 18.
Continue reading “Much more is needed to address the crisis in social care”
A report, Home Cure, published earlier this year by the think tank Demos, amongst other things, called for a more holistic and long-term approach to reablement services so that people are supported, not just to manage in their own homes, but also to engage with the community.
Engaging with the community – shopping, meeting with friends, using leisure facilities, taking part in activities, using public transport, simply getting out for a breath of fresh air – is one of the biggest challenges deafblind people face. Services that address that challenge are a must if deafblind people’s quality of life is to improve.
Lynda Jones
Whilst chatting with Donna (the technology co-ordinator for Sense) I told her about the different loops I use to enable me to listen to all my audio devices. She mentioned the ConnectLine, a system produced by my hearing aid manufacturer and organised a trial for me. Donna and Keith from Oticon came to my home and Keith linked the ConnectLine to my hearing aids.
