Scottish Council on DeafnessAnnual Report 2005-6

Counselling Training Project

Financial StatementEvents and Meetings

Activities and Campaigning

Profi le RaisingInformation Service

Membership

Representations

Convenor’s Statement | Gordon Chapman

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As I write this at the end of my fi rst year as Convenor of SCoD, I wonder where the time has gone. It seems like only yesterday that I agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to take the ‘hot seat’, but looking back I have to admit I have enjoyed the challenge that the involvement in a diverse organisation such as SCoD can bring.As you will see from the Director’s statement and the Annual Report, it has been another good year for the organisation and those members who are actively involved in working together to bring an improvement in the quality of deaf people’s lives.This is not always easy. Attitudes still prevail across

all sections of society that create barriers for deaf people but SCoD continues to campaign to overcome these problems. In most cases, it works in partnership with member organisations, in others, it works alone, from the front, taking the lead when appropriate.The great strength SCoD has is that it is an ‘umbrella’ organisation. It embraces all different organisations that are working in the fi eld of deafness and it treats everyone the same. In this way it generates respect, confi dence and trust from everyone.Much of this is due to the hard work carried out by the Director and her staff team. They work extremely hard

yet consistently produce the goods and I must thank them for this. Thanks must also go to my colleagues on the Management Committee for the time they make available to attend meetings and the support they offer the staff and me. A similar thanks should be made to those members who attend the various sub committees. Their input is invaluable to the direction of SCoD.Finally, I would like to thank all SCoD members for their interest and support over the year. We have interesting times ahead and SCoD will continue to work with all of you to achieve our mutual goals. Thank you.

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Director’s Report | Lilian Lawson OBEThis report shows that as ever, we have continued to raise awareness of many issues affecting Deaf Sign Language users, Deafened, Hard of Hearing and Deafblind people at the national level, in particular the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive. This was achieved through lobbying work and representation at many meetings.In December 2006, the Disability Equality Duty for the public sector comes into effect. In the next fi nancial year, we will lobby public authorities to ensure that their new policies will actively promote opportunities for deaf and deafblind people as well as other disabled people.

The Counselling Training Project has enhanced our profi le while raising awareness of deaf and deafblind people’s needs for improved access to counselling training and counselling services. More and more counselling agencies are turning to us for advice. Students who successfully completed the Certifi cate Courses in Counselling Skills will receive their certifi cates at the University of Strathclyde’s award ceremony in November 2006. An excellent achievement in itself, it is one made all the more signifi cant when you learn that, for most of the students, this was their fi rst experience of studying at

university level. We are grateful to the Scottish Executive, Big Lottery Fund, trusts and individual donors for their fi nancial support, without which we would have struggled to survive and meet our aims and objectives for this fi nancial year.We are also grateful to our member organisations for their representation at our National Council meetings, in sub-committees and ad hoc groups. Representation supports our work in improving deaf and deafblind people’s access to services, information and mobility - all with the aim of eliminating social isolation.

Sum

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4Alan MacdonaldThe summarised fi nancial statements have been extracted from the full fi nancial statements which were approved on 18 September 2006 and do not constitute the charity’s statutory fi nancial statements. The full fi nancial statements have been audited and the auditor’s opinion was unqualifi ed.The summarised fi nancial statements may not contain suffi cient information

to allow for a full understanding of the fi nancial affairs of the charity and do not constitute the charity’s statutory fi nancial statements. For further information, the full annual fi nancial statements, the auditors report on these fi nancial statements and management committee’s report should be consulted. Copies of the audited fi nancial statements can be obtained by writing to the Scottish Council on Deafness.The Management Committee has decided that the reserves policy is equivalent to 50% of annual net expenditure. The unrestricted funds of the charity at 31 March 2006 are £208,266. Approved by the Management Committee and signed on its behalf by Gordon Chapman, Convenor and Alan Macdonald, Honorary Treasurer.

Balance Sheet

For the year ended 31 March 2006

Treasurer’s Report

Restricted Fund £

Unrestricted Fund £

Total2006 £

TotalRestated

2005 £

£2006

£2005

££

Independent Auditors Statement

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We have examined the summarised fi nancial statements of the Scottish Council on Deafness.Respective Responsibilities of the Management Committee and AuditorsThe Management Committee is responsible for preparing the summarised annual report in accordance with the recommendations of the charities SORP.

Our responsibility is to report to you our opinion on the consistency of the summarised fi nancial statements with the full fi nancial statements and Management Committee’s Report. We also read the other information contained in the summarised annual report and consider the implications for our report if we become aware of any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the summarised fi nancial statements.

Basis of OpinionWe conducted our work in accordance with Bulletin 1999/6 The auditors’ statement on the summary fi nancial statement issued by the Auditing Practices Board for use in the United Kingdom.

OpinionIn our opinion the summarised fi nancial statements are consistent with the full fi nancial statements and Management Committee’s report of the Scottish Council on Deafness for the year ended 31 March 2006.

Registered Auditors61 Dublin Street Edinburgh EH3 6NL

Counselling Training ProjectSCoD’s Counselling Training Project has had a very successful year. The Big Lottery and Scottish Executive fund the project which started in 2004 with the intention of training deaf people in counselling skills, mainstream counsellors in deaf awareness and helping counselling training courses become more accessible to deaf people.Trudi Collier and Lorna McNae (nee Weatherstone) have continued to work on the project this year. Lorna left SCoD at the end of March to work for LINK. Teresa Brasier is currently covering Trudi’s maternity leave.Over the course of the three-year project there will be three COSCA Certifi cate in Counselling Skills Courses run at the University of Strathclyde. The fi rst course fi nished in October 2005 with thirteen students completing the course. Another Taster

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Weekend took place before the second course, which started in September 2005 with eight students and will complete in May 2006. The students from the fi rst and second courses will graduate in November 2006 – we are hoping that the national press and TV will cover this occasion. A third Taster Weekend was held in February 2006 with ten students starting the course in March. Communication support professionals (interpreters and electronic notetakers) are provided throughout the course and students and staff consider the course to be a success although there has been a steep learning curve.16 counselling trainers attended a Forum in Perth entitled ‘Are your counselling courses accessible?’ There were presentations on deaf and deafblind issues in training and also by tutors and students

from the Strathclyde course. An information pack has been produced for organisations seeking to make their counselling courses accessible.Five ‘Communication Tactics with Deaf People’ courses ran with fi fty-one counsellors trained and one ‘Deafblind Awareness’ course with thirteen counsellors trained. Feedback from mainstream counsellors has been extremely positive: “Gave an insight which I had never really had before”, “Feel more able to understand the needs of deaf people”.A leafl et has been printed, ‘Advice for GPs on Counselling for Deaf and Deafblind Patients’ about referring a deaf patient for counselling. This leafl et is also useful for anyone going to see their GP to ask for counselling. The SCoD website now has a CTP area with current information and leafl ets: www.scod.org.uk/ctp.htm

Teresa Brasier & Trudi Collier

Community Care and Residential Care Services With Deaf Connections, we co-ordinated an Open Meeting for deaf and deafblind people aged 50+. Over 150 people from all over the country attended and enjoyed presentations from Deaf Action, Deaf Care, South Ayrshire Social Work Services, Trust Housing and the Scottish Executive. Discussions following each presentation offered deaf and deafblind people the opportunity to express views on their future care. In addition to ourselves, Glasgow Old People’s Welfare Association and Age Concern took displays, all of which were well attended.

Events and MeetingsM

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June

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Visual CommunicationsTo keep abreast of fast changing visual technology, we organised a one-day seminar in Glasgow. Deaf Action, Deaf Connections, D3 Media, RNID and the British Deaf Association were invited along to talk about their innovative projects. We have since set up a Technology Sub-committee whose remit includes dissemination of accessible information about technological developments and products.

SCoD Annual Open DayFollowing on the success of our fi rst Open Day, we once again opened our doors this year. It was a resounding success with around 50 visitors. People came, chatted, asked questions, picked up leafl ets and other information resources, made donations and bought DVDs.

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Information ServiceTwelve issues of the SCoD Monthly Bulletin were prepared and distributed to over 350 individuals and organisations.Three SCoD newsletters were prepared, printed in full colour and distributed to over 6000 individuals and

organisations.Twelve Scottish Parliament Business Reports were

prepared and distributed to around 200 individuals and organisations.

Website

Last year, almost 15,000 people visited our website.Every SCoD newsletter (in pdf) and Bulletin (in Word format) was made available to view online or download and print; likewise for every Scottish Parliament Business Report.We provided weekly updates of captioned cinema listings in addition to weekly updates of signed and captioned theatrical performances.Details of signed television programmes were also updated on a weekly basis.All relevant vacancies were available in the jobs section of our website.

We added a new Counselling Training Project Section to our website. It is packed with useful information for d/Deaf people and counsellors alike.

www.scod.org.uk/ctp.htm

Via our website calendar we told you about 871 accessible events, courses and tours in and around Scotland. That averages out at more than two per day!

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Another successful Question Time event took place, this time in Kilmarnock. A lively audience

of 50 Deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people put many questions about local services to a panel of Margaret Jamieson MSP, Adrian Carragher (Audiology), Graham Short (Education), Alison Findlay (Social Work) and Cllr Jim O’Neill (Stewarton Central).We saw questions raised

Nov

05Local Services

on a wide variety of topics, including the lack of visual information for public transport, resulting in confusion and inconvenience; the diffi culties experienced when visiting local doctors surgeries; general problems concerning the lack of good signage; the overall shortage of interpreters and especially interpreters for emergency situations; problems with the Access to Work scheme and problems accessing local police services. Serious concern was raised about the lack of lipreading

classes in East Ayrshire and those present were assured that this issue would be explored by the local council. Cllr O’Neill further ensured that all future meetings of the Community Partnership would be fully accessible for d/Deaf people so that their opinions would be heard.

Thanks to East Ayrshire Council for hosting this event and for kindly providing the refreshments.

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Activities and Campaigning

TransportNetwork Rail and First ScotRail met with us to discuss information and communication access issues, unstaffed stations and help points.

TelevisionOn behalf of many hard of hearing people, we wrote to the BBC, the Independent Television Commission and Ofcom to raise issues about “TV noise”. Two deaf representatives accompanied us at our meeting with Scottish Television in March. At this meeting we asked when they were going to increase their pool of BSL signers for their “Scotland This Week” programme.

TelecommunicationsOn behalf of many disgruntled deaf ntl service users, we lobbied ntl to remove their unnecessary charges for operator assisted calls and this was successfully resolved. There is however an on-going complaint about the ntl textphone (number 0800 052 9735) which is often unobtainable or unanswered.

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On behalf of many thousands of deaf and deafblind people and with member organisations, we continued to raise awareness of issues of concern:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also invited our delegation to speak to senior psychiatrists at their autumn meeting in Edinburgh in September 2006.

We continued lobbying for specialist mental health services and improved access to mainstream mental health services in Scotland. A delegation from our Mental Health and Deaf People Task Group attended the Public Petitions Committee meetings at the Scottish Parliament to follow their discussion of our petition, which is still under consideration.

In January, the same delegation attended the Cross Party Group on Mental Health (CPGMH) meeting and gave a strong presentation on these mental health issues. As a direct result of our presentation, the CPGMH Convener tabled seven parliamentary questions and a motion for debate in February.

Mental HealthActivities and Campaigning

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Access to Further & Higher Education and Leisure & ArtsTo the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee’s Disability Inquiry we submitted written evidence concerning deaf and deafblind people’s access to further & higher education and leisure & arts.

Emergency ServicesWe contacted the Home Offi ce, the Scottish Executive, MSPs and MPs about deaf and deafblind people’s lack of access to emergency services via their mobile phones. This has prompted the Scottish Executive to set up a working group with the emergency services.

Activities and Campaigning 12

Emergency ServicesWe contacted the Home Offi ce, the Scottish Executive, MSPs and MPs about deaf and deafblind people’s lack of access to emergency services via their mobiles. This has prompted the Scottish Executive to set up a working group with the emergency services.

Mar

06EmploymentWith Deaf Connections, Deaf Action and Deaf Professionals Scotland, we continued our ‘battle’ with the Access to Work Business Team. Some of the issues include: reduced Access to Work support, staff attitudes and late refunds, but this is not exhaustive. Meetings have taken place, along with an exchange of letters, e-mails and telephone calls. We also wrote to MSPs, MPs and the Department for Work and Pensions. With sign language interpreting agency JustSign, we had a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown MP in his constituency offi ce in December. This situation is not yet resolved.

Written evidence about Access to Work was also submitted to the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee’s Disability Inquiry.

Access to Work

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Activities and Campaigning

Changes to the SCoD ConstitutionAt a special meeting of our National Council, the following changes to our Constitution were approved.• Increase the Management Committee from 12 to 15 members• Remove the ‘elapsing of one year’ rule. Making these changes will hopefully encourage more people to become involved in our work, thus broadening our skillset, which could benefi t our strategic planning, management and fundraising.

SCoD Membership

We were pleased to welcome the British Society

for Mental Health and Deafness,

Geemarc, Scottish Deaf Studies Tutor Group, BSLIS Scotland and Heriot Watt University as new members.

April05We travelled to Girvan to take part in an awareness and information day organised by the Sensory Impaired Support Group (SISG). This was an opportunity to inform the local community about our work.

May05In May we took our display to the CACDP Sign Fair at Hampden Park in Glasgow. Deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people from all over the country came along and we all enjoyed talking about our work and the work of SCoD.

Raising Our Profi le | Awareness Displays

Nov05We held a successful three-day Awareness Display in the Scottish Parliament. Over 30 MSPs, including the Scottish Conservative Party leader, plus many more parliamentary staff took time out to talk with staff and volunteers about a wide range of issues affecting deaf and deafblind people in Scotland.

Mar06We were delighted to have a display at ‘Making an Impact,’ a conference organised by the RNID at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. We were pleased to meet so many SCoDnews readers attending this conference.

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Representations

• Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters’ Scottish Training Strategy Working Group• Donaldson’s College Board of Governors• Scottish Accessible Information Forum• Deaf Professionals Scotland• Fair for All – Disability Project Advisory Group

To this end, we continued our representation on the following committees and working groups:

• Sensory Impairment Action Plan Steering Group and Training Sub-group• Equality Unit’s BSL and Linguistic Access Working Group and Disability Working Group• Audiology Services Advisory Group• 21st Century Social Work Review Stakeholders Group and User & Carer Panel

• Cross Party Group on Deafness• Cross Party Group on Mental Health

Wide representation is essential to ensure issues affecting deaf and deafblind people are raised and discussed at these meetings.

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Support the work we do: donate to SCoDSupport the work we do: donate to SCoDSCoD works tirelessly to improve the lives of all deaf people in Scotland, to help promote their rights as individuals and to reduce their sense of exclusion. We need your help to continue this work. Please give generously.Make cheques/postal orders payable to Scottish Council on Deafness. This form can be photocopied.I wish to make a donation of £

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