Following her research in USA and UK on the gaps in services for Deaf parents and Deaf parents to be, Sabina Iqbal (Chair of DPUK) established Deaf parenting Project under the DPPi, which later became independent as Deaf Parenting UK in 2001.
Made up of interested organisations and individuals to provide a forum to discuss Deaf parenting issues, Deaf Parenting UK has been operating for the past six years.
Following a lack of interest from mainstream Deaf organisations in developing a range of projects and programmes to work with Deaf parents, a decision was made in October 2004 to become a registered charity as an independent organisation and to seek funding to deliver a range of programmes/ services targeted at Deaf parents.
Who are Deaf Parents?
Deaf parents could be Deaf Adults:
- With Hearing children
- With Deaf children
- With step-children/step families
- As Deaf parents to be, expecting baby
- As foster/adopter or respite carer
- Single Mother/Single Father
Therefore Deaf parents means Deaf Adults who have key responsibility for children.
The aims of Deaf Parenting UK
The aims of Deaf Parenting UK, as an independent organisation are:
- To enable confidence, empowering and supporting Deaf Parents
- To highlight the gaps in services in UK
- To work with various organisations including Health, Social Services, Deaf & mainstream parenting organisations to improve access to information and services to Deaf Parents.
Also, the Deaf Parenting UK has given presentation/workshops at various conferences on local, national and international levels. We also had a Deaf Parenting Conference (May 2004) to launch the book as well as providing seminars/workshops on Deaf Parenting issues and exhibitors from Deaf and mainstream parenting organisations, which was a great success. As a result of our high profile work and reaching out to the public, we had lots of interest/ feedback from Deaf parents and professionals, requesting for more accessible information and support group for Deaf parents.