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Teachers of D/deaf children and young people

Teachers of Deaf or deaf (D/deaf) children and young people support babies, children and young people in their homes, nurseries, pre-schools, primary and secondary schools and colleges.

We support young people up to the age of 25 if they are still in education.

We use the convention ‘Deaf’ with a capital D for those who are born Deaf and see themselves as part of a Deaf community, and ‘deaf’ with a lowercase ‘d’ for those who have hearing loss and mainly use oral means of communication.

Our team can:

  • advocate for D/deaf children and young people

  • inform parents to help make decisions for their child’s education

  • explain audiograms and talk about hearing loss and its impact

  • assess and monitor needs – academic, social, emotional

  • teach and support in or out of the classroom, nursery or home

  • write reports for annual reviews

  • share knowledge, information and develop skills of educational staff

  • run D/deaf baby and toddler groups

  • present D/deaf awareness training

  • organise BSL support from a Deaf role model

  • provide audiology technical support for example assistive listening devices (ALD)

  • carry out acoustic/environmental audits

  • share information about local and national support groups

  • advise and support pupils with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

We also work together with other professionals including:

  • audiologists

  • cochlear implants teams

  • speech and language therapists

  • health visitors

  • paediatricians

  • educational psychologists

  • other therapists

  • social care

  • other local authority teams for example the early years specialist teachers and Portage

  • National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) and local groups

Accessing the service

Referral

Children and young people are referred to us by the audiology clinics. Once we receive the referral we contact either the parent carer or the educational setting to arrange support.

Funding

D/deaf children and young people can access support from our specialist teacher of D/deaf children and young people service under special educational needs (SEN) support.

Funding for children and young people with an EHC plan is delegated to schools. The school can arrange access to teachers of D/deaf children and young people through our packages of support as outlined in the EHC plan.

For information about funding for early years see:

  • Inclusion fund
    Additional funding for early years providers in Lancashire who are eligible for 3/4 year old funded early education (FEE).

  • Disability Access Fund (DAF)
    Funding for three and four year old children who receive Disability Living Allowance (DLA) (link to the EEF guidance website).