A Guide to Deaf Awareness Week

What is Deaf Awareness Week?

Deaf Awareness Week is an annual event in the UK. It brings awareness to the communication and social challenges that deaf adults and children experience. It’s also a chance to increase understanding of deaf culture, boost inclusion, and promote better accessibility.

According to RNID, around 18 million people in the UK are deaf or have hearing loss. A recent report showed over 60% of deaf people believe that most people hold negative views of them. Plus, over 80% of British Sign Language users agree that stigmas still exist towards deaf communities. As a result, deaf people often feel isolated and misunderstood.   

Workplace leaders can use Deaf Awareness Week as an opportunity to train staff and promote the benefits of increased accessibility. For instance, Assistive Technology can increase productivity and earnings for people with hearing loss yet only 4% of workers with disabilities said they received appropriate levels of AT support during a ten-year study.    

When is Deaf Awareness Week?

Deaf Awareness Week is an annual event that takes place in May. Each year, a different theme underpins the week’s efforts to raise awareness of deafness.

Previous themes of ‘access to communication’ and ‘celebrating love and trust’ have given organisations a platform to raise awareness of communication and equal access needs of people with hearing loss.

How to Support Deaf Awareness Week in the Workplace

There are no particular rules for how a workplace should support Deaf Awareness Week. But there are some key points to keep in mind. Some of these may inspire you to plan appropriate and relevant activities. 

Review and Increase Your Accessibility

Any activities around Deaf Awareness Week will be more effective if they’re meaningful. For instance, it’s a legal requirement to make Reasonable Adjustments for any staff with a registered disability. So, if anyone in your organisation confirms they have hearing loss or is deaf then you must make appropriate alterations to suit them. One of those can be adding captions to Zoom meetings and in-person meetings. And since over 80% of organisations now add captions to Zoom meetings, this is easy to do.

Another thing to consider for accessibility is a review of your online content. All web content should follow WCAG formats such as headers and paragraph tags in the right places, for example. Also, consider how visual aids could help your staff such as alarms, 

Train Staff on Appropriate Communication

Many staff will be unaware of what they could or should do to support colleagues who may be deaf or have hearing loss. But offering them the chance to learn British Sign Language (BSL) could be game-changing. 

Doing so benefits both sides. For instance, staff who are deaf or have hearing loss increase their accessibility while hearing staff get the opportunity to develop valuable skills they can use in future work environments or their personal lives. Alongside BSL training, when staff receive deaf awareness training they get a deeper understanding of the barriers deaf people face. After receiving training, they feel more confident in communicating with deaf customers and clients. 

Run Inclusive Initiatives

A strong sense of employee inclusion leads to an 8X higher likelihood of achieving better business outcomes. And there are approaches you can take to foster better inclusion. These include appointing inclusion champions, setting up Employee Resource Groups (ERG), and supporting leadership in making change.  

Providing regular feedback, embedding inclusion into policies, and fixing job ads to welcome deaf candidates can all be powerful. Joining the government’s Disability Confident Scheme is also a very powerful way to showcase your commitment. 

Host Relevant Events

Hosting events may not be as difficult or convoluted as you imagine. It could be as simple as launching an instructional guide, creating a video for internal training, or arranging drop-in deafness awareness sessions in person. 

In such sessions, guides or instructors could help staff understand more about deaf culture and what they could do to support and acknowledge deaf people. It’s all about making meaningful changes and encouraging better acceptance: 

• What you say: Being respectful and avoiding any condescension is an important way to respect deaf people. There can be many pitfalls to saying the wrong things and a drop-in session could help keep everyone on track. 
• How you say it: Many deaf people rely on lip-reading to understand others. Knowing this can help staff speak to deaf people face-on, maintaining eye contact, and with enough light for deaf people to see.  
• Where you say it: Some people with hearing loss use different tactics to overcome their problems, like lip-reading. But if there’s also a lot of background noise, this can prevent them from understanding others. Finding a quiet space to talk can help.  

What Are the Benefits of Supporting Deaf Awareness Week at Work?

With other events to consider such as Dyslexia Awareness Month, National Inclusion Week, and Neurodiversity Celebration Week, it could seem overwhelming to add Deaf Awareness Week to the list. However, the benefits will be far-reaching and will include the following: 

• Boosts inclusion and morale: Around 18 million people across the UK are deaf, have hearing loss, or experience tinnitus. Creating working atmospheres that recognise and support deaf culture can help to increase inclusion for deaf people and raise morale.  
• Improves employee communication skills: Staff may need to communicate with colleagues, clients, and customers who are deaf. When they engage in training for the best ways to communicate with deaf people, they gain skills and boost their confidence. 
• Leverages accessibility audits: Making time for events like Deaf Awareness Week is a good way to revisit and refresh your approach to accessibility. It’s a way to check you’re providing reasonable adjustments or encouraging support through the Access-to-Work scheme.  
• Drives continuous improvement: Drop-in training sessions and ERGs set up for Deaf Awareness Week can help with sourcing feedback on the types of changes you may need to make. Gaining this feedback can lead to long-term improvements. 
• Improves employer branding: Deaf Awareness Week can also be a convenient way to showcase support for the deaf community on social media and your web pages. This can then attract candidates who may be deaf or have hearing loss who may not otherwise have thought to apply. 
• Shows staff how to care for their ears: We live in a noisy world which can impact our hearing in many ways. Deaf Awareness Week helps staff understand how to care for their eyes and pass this knowledge on to others too.