Our award winning sister company TalkFirst Baby Signing has launched a new course teaching Childcare Professionals how to integrate signing into their settings with all children.

There are 2 courses to choose from:

• The starter course introduces staff to the basics of signing and explains the benefits of using signs and speech with all children to enhance language development. It also includes at least 72 child related signs.
• The Follow On course does exactly what it says on the tin and continues and expands vocabulary learnt from the starter course.

Both courses are an absolute joy to attend and are fun, interactive and lively. These courses are available either daytime or evening. Click onto the TalkFirst website for further details.

Wowee Salford – Congratulations on completing your CACDP Level 1 BSL course in 8 days. 12 members of staff undertook 50 hours of intensive learning and assessments during the Summer break with Deaf tutor Geraldine Marsden.

‘Really enjoyed it and I am pleased we will now be able to offer a better service to BSL using students.’

‘Brilliant tutor - really enjoyed the experience.’

We have worked with Blackburn with Darwen Council many times but more recently our work has been with Children’s Services. Throughout 2008 we are training a whole range of people from the childcare workforce and are delivering our Disability Equality and Awareness in Action Course. Due to the nature of the job i.e. childcare, the timing of the courses needed to be flexible and we are offering evening and weekend courses to enable everyone to attend.

Here is a selection of feedback from Childminders on the course 10th and 17th May 2008

Excellent, would highly recommend to anyone.
Best course I’ve been on, brilliant, really enjoyed it.
Best course I have been on for a long time.
Thoroughly enjoyed the course and worth giving up 2 Saturday mornings for!
Very well presented, very interesting, made me think.

If you are look for similar training click here. (Take to courses page)

Sensory Awareness Course

A fantastic new course we have developed for 2008 in response to the needs of our clients. The 1 day interactive course looks at deaf awareness in the morning, visual awareness in the afternoon and a brief look at deafblindness at the end of the day. The course is aimed at front line staff who come into contact with a range of people everyday. It is particularly useful if you work with older people.

Both Rochdale and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Councils have commissioned the course and were lucky to have local man, 27 year old guest speaker Michael Collins to give them an insight into living with deafblindness.

‘Very well run and enjoyable. Facilitator was excellent, particularly enjoyed visit from Michael – adds a different perspective.’
Adult Care Services RMBC

‘It has given me an awareness that I did not have before and I feel better equipped to do my job’
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council

For course details click here.

When Mary Mullally, PALS Assistant, needed some extra tuition to brush up on her BSL skills she got just that from HearFirst’s Deaf tutor Kate Brierley. It has been Mary’s dream to be able to use her signing to help Deaf patients. Kate helped Mary build up her confidence and refresh her skills. We are pleased to report that Mary is now ready and raring to go and will start her Level 3 BSL in September. Good Luck Mary!

Julie Ryder (HearFirst Founder) wins Barclays Trading Places North West Award. The contest recognises men and women who have overcome various barriers and battled against the odds to positively change their lives by setting up in business. As a regional winner, Julie is guaranteed to receive £1100 worth of Microsoft software and will attend the National finals in October to find out if she is UK winner. Julie entered the awards with HearFirst’s sister company TalkFirst Baby Signing. Click here to go to www.talkfirst.net

The M.E.N Arena hosts a diverse range of world class performers from pop, rock, dance and classical, family shows, comedy and sport.

This is what they said after a 1 day Introduction to British Sign Language course with our Deaf tutors Kate and Mickey

• One of the most useful courses we have had
• I definitely want to learn more
• Thoroughly enjoyable and very well presented
• Useful and Interesting
• Very helpful
• Educational but clear and concise.
• The day flew by
• I think we should build this into our inductions and potential training in the future.

Thank you MEN Arena for your comments - we were looking forward to delivering the training and really enjoyed the day . We hope that you will be able to make a difference to Deaf visitors! If you need more signs just let us know.

Double baby news at HearFirst

Our tutor Debi Burridge became a Grandma for the 1st time on 11th March – Congratulations Grandma!!

Also Congratulations to Ash our Training Manager who gave birth to a very beautiful baby girl on 10th March 2008.

Evie Miriam weighed in at 7lbs 3oz. Both Mum, Dad and Evie are all doing great. We are all looking forward to Evie learning to sign.

It always gives us great pleasure to deliver our 1 day Introduction to British Sign Language Course. A little sign language can go a long way and this course proves time after time that our step by step approach works well for our learners. HearFirst deaf tutors Kate and Mickey were well impressed with the staff so keep it up folks – you’re doing good!

By the end of the day the group was ready to learn some work related signs and staff from Salix Homes were shown relevant signs e.g. tenancy, repair, neighbour etc.

Another Introduction to British Sign Language . . .

By the end of the day staff from Blackburn and Darwen PCT were confident, knowledgeable and raring to get going with signing to their deaf patients. This course was a pilot course so if you work for the PCT, contact Jules Wall and get your name down for the next one.

This is what Riccardo Kennedy said, “The course was fantastic. I am certainly interested in furthering my BSL learning.”

Work Solutions March 08

We are very pleased to be working with Work Solutions delivering both ‘Disability Equality and Awareness Training’ and ‘Diversity and Equality Training’.

Work Solutions deliver high quality and innovative services aimed at improving skills and securing employment for the socially excluded, disadvantaged and economically inactive people in the Manchester Sub-region (MSR). Through its network of 15 centres, Work Solutions has a physical presence across Greater Manchester. Work Solutions works in close collaboration with local authorities, Jobcentre Plus, Learning Skills Council (LSC) and various local regeneration partnerships to significantly improve the employment prospects for local people.

In Manchester again – this time with Manchester Care. They offer a range of support services:

• Specialist care
• Care for older people, including older people with dementia and similar needs.
• Adults with mental health needs.
• People with learning disabilities.
• People with physical and sensory disabilities.

We delivered our brand spanking new course to them - ‘Sensory Awareness'. The one day course covers deaf awareness, visual awareness and deafblind awareness. Click here for the course outline.

Karen Smith, Patient Services Manager had a HearFirst experience a couple of years ago when she attended a training event held by Oldham PCT! When she moved to her new role she was keen to get us involved to roll out some Disability Training to almost 100 members of staff ranging from GP’s to Receptionists to Diabetes Nurses!

Karen wanted us to deliver training that would enable providers to be more aware and enable services to be much more accessible for a range of disabled people especially those with hearing difficulties. We tailored our 1 day course to suit their needs.

Tameside GP Patrick Doody said this, “Excellent training, would be good to promote to all GP practices as in house training for their GPs”.

Child minders from Rochdale spent a very cold 2 hours in Rochdale Town Hall learning more about deaf children, their communication methods and equipment they use. The session was very well received and the warmth of our tutor ‘Jayne’ ensured a productive evening for everyone with ALL participants reporting that they had learnt new things and would feel much more confident communicating with a deaf or hard of hearing child.

Success continues at the Dept of Justice. Here are our latest recruits signing ‘court’.

Louise Chambers, Regional Diversity manager is aiming to have at least 2 people in every Court in London trained in basic BSL. The courses are highly successful and more events are planned for 2008.

Louise says,”Thanks for all the great work you have been doing with our front-line staff.”

Julie says, “Don’t mention it. Everyone is picking up the signs really well. Not only that, they are picking up my Lancashire accent as well – it’s just greaaaaate!”

Remploy January 08

HearFirst developed and delivered 5 deaf awareness sessions to workers from the Remploy factory in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. Remploy realises the importance of hearing workers understanding the needs of D/deaf colleagues and vice versa.

“If communication is clear, everyone knows what’s happening and that helps our business performance.”

The sessions were delivered to hearing workers, D/deaf workers and workers with learning difficulties. The training was followed up by a report to management and an action plan to improve working relationships and signing skills within the factory.

Good luck to Remploy Huddersfield in implementing the changes.

November 07

Julie Ryder (HearFirst founder) is a finalist in the Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award 2007. Stelios from easyGroup has committed to giving £50,000 of his own money to the winning company. The winner will be announced on 29/11/07 at a glittering award ceremony in London. Stelios has had help from Leonard Cheshire Disability to sift through the applications and choose the winner. Before you all ask for a discount on our course fees. 1. She hasn’t won yet! 2. The money is earmarked for HearFirst’s sister company www.talkfirst.net to help with franchise recruitment! So it is business as usual at HearFirst!

October 2007 – more open course success!

HearFirst undertook a second mini series of open courses this year in Manchester and Preston. The open courses are a great opportunity for people to book a small number of places or for delegates to come and check us out in advance of booking their own in house courses.

If you are interested in a place on a future open course, please contact us or look at our site again soon when we hope to have more information about courses.

Our delegates came from organisations as varied as Councils, NHS Trusts and Theatres and each course was lively and provided much food for thought. Here are some of the comments from our delegates:

Thank you for a super course on Wednesday. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am sure so did everyone else. We learned a lot and personally I would like to take things further, and will be having discussions with my manager about that, but a sincere thank you for your time and a brilliant day, I think it was one of the best courses I have attended.

I think signing is something that needs to be practiced consistently to improve the skill and I intend to propose that we set up a "skills practice club" within our office as I believe there are several in the office who have some signing experience and a practice meeting may be a way to promote signing between us all on a regular basis.
Many thanks again.
Dave Dixon, AtW Advisor

16th August 2007

Janet Toth attended a HearFirst Disability Awareness training session for the lifelong learning team at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council in March 2006. She said ‘I was so inspired by yourselves I decided I wanted to learn to sign. I enrolled on a course at Blackburn College and this week I received my results – I now have a level 1. Thanks for the inspiration’.

We are delighted Janet was inspired by our tutors and by her excellent exam success. Well done Janet!

If you would like to take part in an introductory course in British Sign Language which covers basic signs, why not book on one of our open courses?

Monday, 23 July 2007

Eastlands Homes is a not for profit housing transfer partnership set up in 2003 to take over and improve around 3000 of East Manchester’s former council homes. With the help of grants from sources such as New Deal for Communities, they’ve invested over £45 million on improving homes and the environment.

Not only that, they have invested in their staff to help them improve services to Deaf tenants and colleagues. 10 members of staff successfully completed Unit 101 of CACDP’s Level 1 qualification in BSL. The training was made up of 9 hours tuition time and a final individual assessment followed. The assessment had to be videoed in line with CACDP requirements so that made it all the more nerve wracking for the candidates. Nevertheless the pass rate was 100%. Well done Eastland’s!

Here we are in the Green Room at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester applauding ourselves (Deaf style) for a good days signing.

The Bridgewater Hall hosts hundreds of events, meetings and conferences throughout the year attracting thousands of visitors. They look after their deaf visitors well and there is a good selection of hearing devices available to borrow at the Hall. Not wanting to rest on their laurels they decided to go a step further and learn some British Sign Language. Following the training, many members of staff can now directly assist British Sign Language users by giving basic information in BSL and responding to requests. Well done to everyone who took part.

Sandra Perrott, Operations Manager said, ‘Thank you so much for the training. Everyone and I mean everyone, even those who didn’t attend, are now signing to each other. The feedback has been tremendous.

‘B’ is for Bury. Staff from Bury PCT learn the BSL alphabet.

A little while ago Marion Lampert (PALS Programme Manager, Bury PCT) contacted us to enquire about a deaf awareness course just for herself - selfish I know! When other staff heard of the treachery there was a revolt and an in house course followed for Marion and 13 others. She emailed us after the course to say:

I just wanted to say a big thank you from everyone here at Bury PCT for a most enjoyable and informative training session on Tuesday. We all really enjoyed the session and I’m sure we have all now gained new skills and a much greater awareness of what it is like to be deaf. Keep up the good work, you are an absolute inspiration and your training was a breath of fresh air from the usual training sessions we have to sit through.

13 Childcare professionals attended 4 evenings of British Sign Language training. The training aimed to improve their communication with Deaf BSL users and also act as an introduction to using signs in their mainstream work with all children. There are many benefits to using signs with speech for all children.

Catherine Wilkes, Teacher said ‘Very well delivered, lots of signs built up our confidence. This is a great course, put it on regularly. Would also be great for parents in Surestart Centres.’

Claire Stryczek, Manager at Little Stars Private Day Nursery said, ‘Better than expected, brilliant. This is the best course I have been on - should do more.’

The good news is we are putting on more courses for Surestart and all participants from this course have signed up to do the follow on course which includes an assessment to achieve Unit 101 Level 1 BSL.

April 2007

One day British Sign Language Course
The course was held at Newcastle University in Castle Leazes Halls of Residence for Accommodation staff.

Angela Bridgett emailed after the event to say this:

I just wanted to say a very big thank you, everyone I spoke to had a really good day. I came back to the office full of enthusiasm and have been encouraging everyone to apply for a place on any future courses. The whole learning experience was really enjoyable and, although I realise I have only touched the tip of the iceberg, feel that at least I could now try to help any visitors to my reception desk!

April 2007 - Mental Health Action Week

This week is Mental Health action Week. The Mental health Foundation is raising awareness of about the importance of friendship and its positive impact on mental health. Click here for more information.

What a pleasure it was to be working with people who actually live in the homes managed by the Housing Association.  We work with many Housing Associations but usually get to meet staff rather than residents.

Pauline Heron who is Resident Involvement Co-ordinator with Space New Living (now part of Great Places) attended a one day course last year with us.  She felt a half day version would be appropriate for the residents panel.

March 2007   - Julie and Ash get big headed in the big city!

Louise Chambers is the Regional Diversity Manager for HMCS in London.  When she asked for 30 people from the Civil and Criminal courts to nominate themselves to attend a British Sign Language 1 day course she got 150 requests! 

The courses ran smoothly and delegates on both courses rated us 100% highly satisfied in all 3 indicators: quality of materials, delivery and overall course success.

Louise said, ‘This level of feedback is unprecedented in my experience (17 years as a trainer).  It doesn’t get any better than that!’

Tutors were Julie and Ash for this event and after much pushing, shoving and squeezing they did manage to get their heads through the train door to make it home.

March 2007

Stockport MBC 4 day British Sign Language Extravaganza

Fifteen carefully chosen employees attended a 4 day BSL extravaganza (otherwise known as an introductory course!).  The course was held every Friday over 4 weeks and ended on a high note when the last session fell on Red Nose Day 2007.  We could not let the occasion pass without doing our bit and a signed song of ‘I Can Sign a Rainbow’ was performed beautifully by all course delegates.  We raised £28 in total.

Thanks to all who took part.

Comments were great from all delegates.  Lisa Jackson summed it up:

This course is exceptional.  I have thoroughly enjoyed every second and will take a great deal away with me.  The context was excellent as was the delivery.  The tutors were a joy and their teaching methods outstanding.  I would recommend this course again and again.

February and March 2007 

Open Course Success

HearFirst undertook a mini series of open courses in Manchester and Preston.  The open courses are a great opportunity for people to book a small number of places or for delegates to come and check us out in advance of booking their own in house courses.

Delegates came from far and wide and all courses were a roaring success.  We will be back again to do another program of courses in the autumn so if you missed these, please look again on our site soon and we’ll have details or contact us and put your name on the waiting list.  Here is a selection of comments from some of our delegates.

‘Thank you for the excellent information I received when attending the course at Luther King House.  I enjoyed it immensely.  The knowledge I gained was invaluable, useful and very interesting!  You made me feel very welcome.’ Sue Pickles, Learning Support team leader Nelson and Colne College

I feel relaxed today and have developed my confidence to continue to learn BSL.  I wish we had had more sessions like this when I did a previous Level 1 course – maybe I wouldn’t have failed – who knows! Jean Kay-Morley Rossendale Borough Council

Linda Barker from the Disability Rights Commission said ‘This Awareness training should be given to all employees.’ Linda, we agree entirely!

January 2007 

Chorley Taxi Drivers improve standards for disabled travellers

Five taxi drivers from Chorley attended our Disability Equality and Awareness in Action Course in an attempt to beat off competition from other drivers to get their Licence plates renewed from Chorley Borough Council.

The training is good news for disabled travellers in the Chorley area and all the drivers said they felt much more confident and aware of various disabilities.

The drivers undertook the training in their own time and funded themselves.  We wish them all the best with their Licence applications. 

Here are 3 of them with their certificates
(Mr Hussain, Mr Waseem and Mr Akram)