Richmond Children’s Hearing Services Working Group

2016 Annual Report

The Richmond CHSWG is a multi-agency group made up of parents and professionals working to improve provision for children and young people with hearing loss in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames. The CHSWG meets 3-4 times per year, with representatives from health, education, social care, voluntary sector and parents of hearing impaired children attending.

During the past year we have met regularly as a group to work on improving and integrating services to hearing impaired children. In addition, members of the team have reported on their efforts to improve specific areas of their own practice.

Some of the CHSWG’s work ran throughout the year. We have been pleased to see good achievements result from these sustained efforts. Some of the larger projects we contributed to this year are these:

The Parent Handbook

The Parent Handbook was a CHSWG project initiated by Pediatric Audiology and then carried through by parent reps in conjunction with the CHSWG membership.

At our July 2015 meeting CHSWG formulated a strategy for getting a Parent Information Pack (now renamed Parent Handbook) published.

At the October 2015 and February 2016 meetings we discussed and advised on the draft Parent Handbook content. NHS Patient Information Officer Sabrina Nelson agreed to help with the book and organize the printing. GeetaUbhayakar at Pediatric Audiology found a budget for this. All members reviewed content and offered suggestions related to their areas. Parent representatives Ellen Purton and Nicola Staines collected views and amendments and incorporated them into the book after both meetings.

At the May meeting, the Parent Handbook content was approved. Plans were made to offer some of the content to other boroughs and to make an abbreviated version for glue ear patients. Sabrina Nelson gave a print deadline and the final components for parent reps to add were agreed. CHSWG also discussed how to distribute the book, including putting an electronic version on the Local Offer and Pediatric Audiology websites.

We are happy to report that the Parent Handbook has now been printed and is being distributed to parents in hardcopy through audiology and other services.

The Local Offer

At CHSWG meetings in July and October 2015, and in January and May 2016 CHSWG contributed to Richmond’s new Local Offer, advising Karen Lowry on content and functionality. We are pleased to see that the Local Offer is up and running well and has lots of useful content on it.

Karen is committed to ensuring the site reflects what the borough is offering deaf children, and took on board all of the CHSWG’s advice. We thank her for the work she has put into ensuring hearing impairment content on the site is available and easy to access. CHSWG will help get feedback on the Local offer from HI parents and pass it to Karen.

In May Karen updated the CHSWG on the Golden Binder initiative, which is a binder holding all information on SEND services in the Borough. This binder is issued to schools, and updated every six months. CHSWG agreed that this was very useful and asked that parents have access to it. Karen also updated us on their new Wikis (personal web pages for children with disabilities.) CHSWG agreed Wikis were a good idea and discussed ways to encourage their use by deaf children.

Assisted Listening Devices

At our July 2015 meetingchildren’s social services from Achieving for Children came to discuss what they offer deaf children. Provision of assisted listening devices was identified as a gap in service provision by CHSWG members.

At our October 2015 meetingassisted listening device funding was discussed again and a plan to clarify its availability was put in place.

In February 2015 Helen Joseph from Achieving for Children clarified the funding of assisted listening devices in schools for pupils with HI. The CHSWG was pleased to hear that these devices will be available to children who need them in school.

Staffing at The Education Service for Sensory Impairment

For many years, we have discussed chronic underfunding of teachers of the deaf in Richmond at CHSWG meetings. Prior to the commissioning of Achieving for Children.the Borough’s Educational Psychology department did not have the staff to adequately support hearing impaired children in the Borough.

In October 2015 Helen Joseph, the Education Service for Sensory Impairment manager at Achieving for Childen reported that additional funding for ESSI had been approved and they were ready tohire more staff.

In February we were pleased to learn that ESSI was interviewing candidates for new teacher of the deaf positions

In May, Helen reported that hiring is nearly accomplished and they hope to be fully staffed by September.

After years of monitoring this situation and working to address it, we are very hopeful that the Council has at last rectified this problem. Parent representatives have been pushing for this through CHSWG for years as they feel that inadequate educational support is the number one frustration for parents of deaf children. We will continue to review this situation in the coming year to ensure that the new funding is adequate.

Glue Ear

The CHSWG chair asked the meeting in July 2015 to look at ways we could work to better serve children with glue ear in the Borough.

In October, audiology presented an audit of 50 children with glue ear in the Borough. The group discussed how to support children with glue ear better. We agreed to try to raise both awareness and training levels in early years settings, schools and GP surgeries regarding spotting glue ear, understanding its impact on the child, and helping the child who has it. Several CHSWG members offered suggestions of actions they could take to help in raising awareness and expertise.

Audiology agreed at the October 2015 meeting to send reports on children with glue ear to their SENCos(with parental permission,) so that schools are aware of children on their register with glue ear.

At the February2016 meeting members reported that they had gotten more information about glue ear to health, childcare and educational professionals. Information had been sent out and Helen Joseph had trained early years settings staff in helping glue ear children access the provision.

At the May meeting, CHSWG approved a short piece for Early Years newsletter on glue ear, which Karen Lowry will put in the autumn edition and on the Local Offer.

Newborn Hearing Screening Program

Throughout the year, CHSWG received good reports from NHSP on their success in reaching their targets, andheard updates on changes to delivery.

In addition to these yearlong activities, here are some of the things we achieved at individual meetings:

July 2015 – Information was presented by Paediatric Audiologyabout their upcoming deaf awareness course for professionals. CHSWG attendees agreed to encourage participation from relevant services.

October 2015: CHSWG was delighted to hear that our own Pediatric Audiology was accredited by IQIPS. This was a hard-won accolade, well deserved by our dedicated audiology staff. We hope that the support of the CHSWG helped them reach this goal.

February 2016: CHSWG discussed how television screens could be used in Pediatric Audiology to disseminate information to parents.

May 2016 : Adult social services attended our CHSWG meeting to explain what they can offer to a young person leaving children’s services. The CHSWG discussed how to manage the transition to adult services more smoothly and how to ensure that adult services support young people who move out to live independently while still receiving care from Pediatric Audiology.

Also in May,Lena Vantol from Kids SENDIASS explained their role and what they can offer to children with hearing impairment in Richmond.

Sharing information about services like Kids SENDIASS and adult social services is vital for ensuring that parents are referred to the help they need.

Richmond CHSWG will continue to try to share information in this way while working on specific areas we have identified for improvement in 2017. We will be agreeing our plan of action for 2017 at our meeting in September 2016.

If you are a professional who provides services to deaf children in Richmond, or a parent of a child with hearing impairment who lives in the Borough, please join us for our meetings. We are always happy to hear new voices!

Presented to the Richmond CHSWG meeting on 21 September 2016

by chair and parent representative, Ellen Purton.