BDA Sign Community : November 2007

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November 2007

A new and exciting Partnership for the BDA Counselling Service has been agreed with Sign, who took over the service in September 2007. This partnership has come at an important time for the BDA and gives a clear showcase of our commitment to the new direction for the BDA with regards to the drive for more partnerships and for the BDA to retake the campaigning role. The new directions were announced at Southport’s Congress in August and also featured in the September issue of SignMatters.

The agreement also benefits the BDA at a time of financial difficulties, though the Counselling Service still remains very important to the BDA and the Deaf Community. The unfortunate reality is that the BDA are finding it difficult to make the service run at better than breaking-even point, and has been doing so for a number of years. The agreement with Sign is of great value to us, as they are an excellent partner with a range of experiences, resources and commitment to take the service further.

BDA Counselling Service which has been a big part of the BDA for a good number of years, initially originated out of the old Aids Ahead project in 1988, when a number of Deaf people were trained as Befrienders for deaf people with HIV. Although the training was extensive, the Befrienders were not trained counsellors and it became clear that there was a need to train people with BSL skills (preferably Deaf) to undertake counsellor-training. An Aids Ahead staff member, Michelle Simpson, was the BDA’s first qualified counsellor in 1992. Around the same time, training courses for Deaf people were started in City College Manchester, which drew Deaf people from all over the UK and Ireland. This broadened the availability of Deaf counsellors and the Counselling Service rapidly developed from HIV/AIDS counselling into Drugs counselling and then into other areas of counselling. After the closure of Aids Ahead and the BDA’s Crewe office, the Counselling Service was transferred to Warrington where it remains to this day.

Now we see the partnership agreement with Sign and the transfer of the BDA’s Counselling Service as an exciting new chapter, enabling us to divert our previously constrained view as the Service Provider to focusing more on the points of view of our members and users of the service, as part of the new role of the BDA.
As we understand, the counselling service will clearly complement Sign’s new drive to broaden their remit and services with the Deaf Community. They provided not just Supported Housing (a focus on gaining independent rather than permanent residential care) as based in Leeds, Manchester and London but also an Outreach Service and Advocacy Service. Sign is one of the largest employers of Deaf people in the UK and 60 percent of their care staff are Deaf.

I am sure that our members would appreciate that Sign is a natural like-minded partner with a focus on BSL in their organisation. Of course the BDA would want to see more progress as to what Sign does with regards to the range of mental heath services for the Deaf Community and the BDA will continue to work with Sign to ensure the best possible service for the Deaf Community.

Sign also would like the BDA to give support in how we can better achieve a more positive perception and understanding of the ranges of mental health issues, to illustrate the key differences between counselling and of more critical mental health care. This issue indeed does not only lie within the Deaf Community but in the wider world there still exists a stigma and misunderstanding. The BDA feels it is important to strive to remove the causes of mental health difficulties and to tackle the inequality of Deaf people, the poverty of BSL in education of young Deaf people and the every day frustrations and barriers that can reduce the chance for perfect mental and emotional health we all are entitled to.

I would like the partnership with Sign to be just the first of many more fruitful partnerships between organisations, and the BDA will work to better achieve the national leadership and expressing the desires of the Deaf Community.