The Department of Children, School & Families (DCSF) have asked Deaf Parenting UK for support in reaching as many Deaf parents as possible to find out how they support parents better and enabling parents to have full access to their children’s learning.
Please find an attached ‘call for evidence’ from parents, professionals and organisations working with parents.
What Deaf Parenting UK would like to see is for as many Deaf parents, professionals working with Deaf parents and services providers to contribute evidences by considering the following:
- how information is shared with parents;
- how parents are involved in decisions about their child;
- how mothers, fathers and other carers are helped to engage (eg: support from family, friend, professionals, advocate, peer support etc)
- how schools and settings have sought to identify and remove barriers faced by particular groups of parents (eg: in what ways are childcare/nursery/schools ensuring Deaf parents’ needs are met?)
- how practice changes as children mature (eg: how things changes as child get older? Staff becoming more familiar of Deaf parents’ needs as child grows in early year/primary/secondary school?);
- how parental engagement can be built into wider improvement strategies for individual children or whole settings. (How can Deaf parents be involved to have their say on how services can be improved for their children and for the whole school for example?)
Deaf Parenting UK and DCSF are keen to hear about your experiences. In particular we want any evidence you have on:
- successful approaches/ good practices? What works well and what doesn’t work well and why?
- Experiences of Deaf parents with children age 0-19yrs. Deaf parents can be from diverse background ranging from working parents, home parents, single parent, young parent, older parents etc.
- Also what are good things from childcare/ early year providers (nurseries) that are useful in supporting parents within the home?
- Example could be useful model of positive behaviour that parents can borrow for home and enable child to learn more within the home eg: reading book, fun games that promote learning, communication.
- Anything that you feel are really useful that help you to promote your child’s learning in the home/family life.
Please send information to DCSF urgently at parental.engagement@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk remembering to include contact details so that they can get in touch if they require further information.
