Deaf Links was founded by people with lived experience of Deafness or sensory impairment across Dundee, Angus, and Perthshire. With co-production embedded in our culture, we involve them in all aspects of service planning and development. 80% of our Board of Trustees are people with lived experience. Our goal is to empower deaf and sensory impaired individuals to become equal, independent, and active members of their communities. We work with people who are: Deaf and use BSL; hard of hearing; deafened; have visual loss; are severely sight impaired; have a combination of sight loss and hearing loss; are Deafblind.
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Deaf Links and Background
Deaf Links was founded by people with lived experience of Deafness or sensory impairment across Dundee, Angus, and Perthshire. With co-production embedded in our culture, we involve them in all aspects of service planning and development. 80% of our Board of Trustees are people with lived experience. Our goal is to empower deaf and sensory impaired individuals to become equal, independent, and active members of their communities. They face disadvantages in accessing services, information, and often experience exclusion from activities meant for a hearing, sighted world. For British Sign Language (BSL) users, English is a second language, and most have an average reading age of 9 due to poor education. Deaf women and girls are twice as likely to experience gender-based violence/abuse than their hearing peers. This results in lower educational attainment, low general knowledge, difficulty accessing services, higher mental health issues, unemployment, health inequalities, and social exclusion. Many of the individuals we work with face additional challenges due to intersectionalities of ethnicity, gender, age, disability, religion, and sexual orientation.
The Difference We Make
Deaf Links provides advocacy, information, and support to deaf and sensory impaired people, delivered by staff fluent in BSL and communication methods relevant to deafness and sensory impairment. We are the first in Scotland to provide specialist advocacy support to Deaf women and girls experiencing gender-based violence/abuse. Our staff, fluent in BSL, guide individuals through the complex pathways to safety. Demand for these services is growing, and with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, many Deaf and sensory impaired families are facing financial hardship, making advocacy support crucial.
Advocacy addresses inequalities by ensuring deaf and sensory impaired people:
- Gain information to represent their needs and views
- Have input on decisions that affect them
- Access information to make informed choices
- Challenge inequality and discrimination
- Navigate complex systems for services and provision
This reduces isolation, increases confidence and resilience, improves mental health, and boosts individuals’ ability to resolve issues. Working with external agencies ensures better individual outcomes and reduces future disadvantage and exclusion by implementing necessary adjustments.