Did you miss me?

You probably haven't noticed but I haven't been around much these last couple of weeks! I've been off travelling around the countries doing lots of fun things, especially NDCS events!

The other weekend I was volunteering at a Pre-Secondary Weekend in a place called Irthlingborough, near Northampton. The idea of the weekends is that all the parents come together and meet with other parents, NDCS staff and in particular education advice people who talk about statements, picking the right school etc. The parents (and kids!) also get to meet Deaf role models who share their experiences of secondary school and what worked for them.

At the same time the kids meet and do fun activities aimed at raising their confidence and talking about things such as "what makes a good or a bad friend?".  They also do outdoor activities - team building, climbing and archery this time...

For a volunteer its an awesome weekend with the best of both worlds, you spend the day with the kids but at meal times and in the evenings the families have responsibility so you're free to do silly things like have pyjama parties...

I've just got back from my latest NDCS event... Last year I was lucky to be a member of the NDCS Youth Advisory Board along with 13 other amazing deaf young people. Now that we've "graduated" from the YAB a group of us have become young facilitators and did a day of training on Friday where we learnt about communication, leading sessions and the importance of giving clear instructions! It was a great day (yummy food) and in the same place as our last residential as a YAB. (The Studio in Birmingham.)

Today the new YAB arrived - looking very nervous! and Ellen and I were on hand to "meet and greet". It's great to see how similar and yet different our two groups are. This years board are much more diverse with a deaf-blind member, more BSL users and more people from Deaf schools. Oh and there are people from Wales this year too!! (drastically under represented last year!!)

The new YAB have done most of the same activities that we did last year... Talking about why they wanted to join the board, getting to know each other and discussing their rights as young people.

Ellen and I also ran a session about the "vintage" YAB and explained what we had achieved...

It was great to see and new, motivated and committed YAB and I hope they become great friends and enjoy the rest of their weekend :)

The Limping Chicken and NDCS Volunteering...

AHHHH... - the scream of excitement I made this morning (no hearing aids in - oops...) when I realised that my first piece of writing had gone up on the Limping Chicken Website!! Massively proud deafie sitting here. Definetely not hitting refresh every five minutes to see if anyone else has commented... ;)

Currently waiting to escape school on the last day of term to catch the train to Bristol for my first NDCS volunteering weekend; as well as a chance to catch up with fellow YABer Sophie from Northern Ireland - lucky thing has already arrived and is busy shopping!

More details about the weekend - and all our teenage antics - will be up on Monday once I've had some sleep and recovered!

PS, if you want to read my Limping Chicken article - first of many! - click HERE. And a massive thank you to Charlie Swinbourne for letting me ramble on... a lot... :)

Confidence and the changes to the Equality Act...

At quarter to seven this morning I woke up and read an email which has made my day brighten - despite the looming Psychology timed essay question...

The email was from one of the girls in my youth group; although one of the eldest she's always been painfully quiet, only really getting involved with the few of us she knows really well. But the last few months all that has changed! She's volunteered to be our committee secretary, dived in to the activities and this morning I've found out why. She's learnt to Sign.

It's a bit silly really - I should have noticed that she'd started joining in with us "signers". And now she's gone one step further than any of us would dare - she's entered the Worcestershire Poetry Slam with a poem about being Deaf, in BSL. Proud doesn't really cover it to be honest. I'm over the moon for her, chuffed to bits!! And we'll be there every single step of the way, cheering and supporting her - she'd better win!

In other news I've also been jumping up and down in joy about the Government changes to the Equality Act. The changes relate to auxiliary aids (things like radio aids and note-takers) and the Government has decided that these should now be provided within school as reasonable adjustments. Its an amazing win, especially for the huge number of deaf children and young people who don't have a statement of educational needs. The best thing is that it's mainly down to NDCS and their campaign which resulted in over 700 replies to a Government consultation. You can read all about it here.

Today is News Day all over the UKand our school are getting involved too - I'm so happy about all the changes to the Equality Act that I've decided to write an article about it.... I'll keep you updated!