This article is primarily aimed hearing at parents and carers of deaf children that wish to learn Sign language to use at home with their child, for others looking for funding advice another article will be coming soon.
Grants for deaf children and their families
If you have a deaf child with any level of deafness and any age and want to learn BSL to support their development then I would encourage you to make an application to the Birkdale Trust. They may be able to cover the course fee’s for you and your partner or your child’s place (if they are older) on a BSL course. The Birkdale Trust was created in 2004 after the closure of Birkdale Deaf School and so many of the trustees have an understanding of the needs of deaf children. The trust aims to support the education and welfare of deaf children and young people up to their mid-twenties if they are resident in the UK. They provide financial support to deaf children and young people with technology or other aids, specialist tuition (including speech therapy or sign language) or courses. They will also consider financially supporting assessments to support appeals against local authorities and in a separate funding stream support charities which support deaf children and young people.
In any grant grant application it pays to be ambitious, and apply for what you actually want; if you would ideally like two adults on a level two course then apply for that, if you can’t get to a local course and would like BSL tuition at home for the whole family then apply for that. Explain the intended benefits of learning to sign and how much of a difference their money will make to you and your family.
Be clear and honest about your ability to commit to course(s) and your commitment to learning to sign. Demonstrate that you understand how deafness could or has affected your child’s development or learning and how funding from The Birkdale Trust (or other trust) will positively benefit your child. To support your applicant if your child is still you could explain how you are planning to prevent language deprivation etc.
If possible demonstrate that you are committed to the proposed plan by highlighting expenses that you have already incurred on your BSL learning journey. The form does not ask you to disclose your income only if your are working and your occupation if your in employment. There is space for you to highlight any other associated costs that will will be covering to enable you to attend the course such as travel, study materials, childcare or time off work. If your application is successful The Birkdale trust tend to pay the BSL collage provider directly so you will need to supply their contact details and a breakdown of the costs as part of your application.
Other Charities
By far the best way to find out about any other charities which might be willing to fund a BSL course for parents or carers is a local NDCS group.
The Family Fund
The family fund supports families of deaf /hard of hearing children, with or without additional extra needs. Whilst they tend to support practical needs such as a new washing machine they regularly do award family fund holiday vouchers of around £500. These can be put towards a huge range of holidays from a range of providers; which means that it can pay all or part of the holiday, leaving you to pay the outstanding balance. In theory this could then free up some of your families finances to cover a BSL course.
The easiest way to book your holiday is to ring their booking office when you have choose the holiday from your choose holiday provider online, and then supply the voucher reference.
Direct Payments
This is not a comprehensive guide to direct payments but there are lots of very good guides to Special Educational Needs (SEN) funding online. What you need to know as the parent of a deaf child is that under the Children’s Act 1989 your local council has a duty to assess a ‘child in need‘ under the age of 18 for any services that they or their family may need. A ‘child in need‘ is defined as one of the following:
- are ‘unlikely to achieve or maintain, or to have the opportunity of achieving or maintaining, a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision of services by a local council’ or
- whose ‘health or development is likely to be significantly impaired, or further impaired, without the provision of services’ or
- are ‘disabled’.
Section 17 (11) of the Children’s Act states that a child is disabled if the child is blind or deaf or non-verbal or suffering from a mental disorder of any kind, or substantially and permanently handicapped by illness, injury or congenital deformity or such other disability as may be prescribed. Further information can be found here.
As any deaf child is a ‘child in need‘ according to this piece of government legislation the local council must do an assessment of your child’s needs. In a similar way to DLA expect the person carrying out the assessment to have no specialist knowledge of deafness, or your needs and how to meet them. Therefore be prepared to suggest they meet your need to learn BSL by funding X. The assessment is often done in your home, state the obvious, be prepared to explain the what level of deafness your child has, how it affects them (or how it oculd affect them in the future) and what you anticipate the benefits of learning BSL to be. Be prepared to tell them what your family needs and practical suggestions of how they can met this need, e.g. funding this course at this place or 1 to 1 support from this BSL tutor.
If you are successful then the council will pay the ‘Direct payment’ into a bank account that you have opened specifically for this purpose. You will need a separate bank account for the direct payments to be paid into so the payments can be audited by the council without giving them access to your household finances.
There are some other resources to help you use BSL with young children here.
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