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!

Julie Ryder (HearFirst founder) is guest on The Deaf Blog

Read her article here

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)