Parliamentary reception for research review
12 Mar 2014
A research review of Social Care Services for Deaf Older People was officially launched by the Minister of State for Social Care, Norman Lamb, at a parliamentary reception.
The review, known as 'The Young Report', was written by Professor Alys Young, Professor of Social Work and Director of SORD (Social Research with Deaf people programme) at the University. It concerns better ways to assess and deliver services for growing numbers of older people who are amongst the 70,000 Deaf British Sign Language users in the UK.
This cultural-linguistic minority community is usually overlooked in policy initiatives which recognise the significance of diversity and culture in appropriate service provision. This is because Deaf BSL users are more commonly seen as being ‘disabled’ rather than possessing a distinct linguistic and culture-specific identity.
As a result of the research review, a new quality mark has been launched for residential care environments in respect of how well they might serve deaf people.
The study was funded by the two specialist organisations RAD and SONUS, working with the Deaf community and in partnership with the University.