Free Deaf Awareness Training and Deaf Access Best Practice (one day)
As part of Captioning Awareness Week (11 – 17 November), Stagetext is offering a free one-day course on deaf awareness and deaf access to help raise awareness of text-based deaf access to arts and culture.
The free training (which usually costs £995) is taking place on Tuesday 12th November, and is being held at the historic Pavilion Theatre in Gorleston, Norfolk, from 10.30am till 4.30pm.
All our training is designed and delivered by Stagetext staff who have a wide range of lived experience of deafness, including wearing hearing aids, cochlear implants, are hard of hearing or have BSL as their first language. They understand first-hand the impact of accessibility on their enjoyment of arts and culture.
The training will also include a demonstration of a live subtitled tablet tour of Gorleston Pavilion and lunch will be provided. We will also have a Q&A to give everyone a chance to ask all the questions you’re afraid to ask about being accessible to deaf audiences – in a judgement free zone.
How to get to the venue: directions can be found here.
We will cover:
- Why deaf awareness is important
- Statistics of deafness in the UK
- Terminology and different types of deafness including D/deaf, deafened and hard of hearing
- Communication strategies for staff speaking to deaf customers
- Hints and tips on removing communication barriers such as in noisy environments or dimly lit areas
- An understanding of what your venue already offers (i.e. hearing loops, transcripts, captions, live subtitled events)
- Introduction to different types of text based deaf access available (theatre captions, live subtitles, digital subtitles) and how they are used
- Easy wins for deaf access
- Planning for access in your funding bids
- How to advertise your deaf access to your customers
- Best practice for your venue’s front of house staff for deaf, deafened or hard of hearing customers
We have worked with an extensive number of organisations within the arts, creative sectors and customer services industries and previous clients include the Mercury Theatre, New Diorama Theatre, Guildhall, RADA, LAMDA, Digital Culture Network, National Theatre, Royal Society, V&A, Regents Park Open Air Theatre and many more within the cultural sector.
The day will be live subtitled and BSL interpreted. If you have any access or dietary requirements please let us know.
To find out more about our training packages, visit our training page.
