Dumfries and Galloway Hard of Hearing Group and Dumfries and Galloway Youth Work Services have launched an initiative to listen to young people with hearing loss and find out how the Coronavirus has affected them.
Having secured funding from the NHS Endowment Trust, and the 10,000 Voices Fund, the first phase of the initiative is a confidential online survey. This survey will help to measure the impact the pandemic and in particular, the wearing of face masks is having on young people’s health and wellbeing. This is to be followed with further engagement which will focus on finding appropriate ways to support young people with hearing loss better. These finding will be shared with the relevant agencies early next year.
Ann Ferguson, Chair of Dumfries & Galloway Hard of Hearing Group said this week “The COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread requirement to wear facemasks, particularly in schools, exacerbates the isolation many young people with hearing loss will be experiencing . Face masks make lip reading impossible and most young people with hearing loss, even if they have hearing aids or cochlear implants rely on varying degree of lip reading to hear”
Questionnaire for young people – Help us to help you
If you are aged between 12 and 25 years old, live in Dumfries and Galloway and have any sort of hearing loss, we would love to hear your views on the experiences and concerns arising from the Covid 19 pandemic from the start of lockdown until the present day. How has your wellbeing or mental health been affected? Have your say by clicking the link and completing the questionnaire. All answers will be completely confidential.
.By completing the questionnaire you will help local and national organisations who work with young people to better suit their services to support young people with hearing loss.
Press Release
We have created a Press Release related to this youth project which you can download.
