Beruflich Dokumente
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Annual Report
Contents
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CDA’s Vision
Cambridgeshire Deaf Association (CDA) exists to
support the welfare and interests of Deaf people
living in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
CDA works mainly with the Deaf community or
people for whom deafness or deafblindness is a
significant consideration when communicating.
Strategic Aims
Our Strategic Aims were set by our board of Trustees in alignment with our charity objects
set out in our constitution. They are to:
This report demonstrates how we have worked to achieve those aims in the year.
Trustees
Our board of Trustees met quarterly throughout the year. In each meeting the Trustees reviewed
the financial position of the strategy against our budget and the performance of the charity
against its strategic aims and annual plan and are aware of risks to the organisation. The board is
made up of a mix of deaf and hearing people. Elaine Heath (Norfolk) resigned as a Trustee in
February 2018 and we thank her for her time and positive contributions.
The board is made up of a mix of deaf people and people who are not deaf from a range of
business, professional and charitable backgrounds. The board has a range of skills which benefit
the Charity. The board will continue to seek to add new Trustees to the board with appropriate
experience.
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Activities to raise funds
1029 Fundraising
Recruitment of a fundraiser. We won a grant from Comic Relief to help pay for the recruitment
of a Trust Fundraiser. We recruited Rory Munro in July and this has helped develop our
capability to raise money for important projects throughout the year.
Befriending Project
A major piece of work we undertook was to bid to The Cambridgeshire Community Foundation
and other trusts to pay for a volunteer coordinator and the costs of running a volunteer project
across the county. We won the bid after a thorough and competitive process. We also received
funding for this project from the Huntingdon Freemen’s Trust and the Mrs Smith and Mount Trust.
Building Work
We were successful in raising £18,000 to convert the Bar Room at our building into an office
space for our staff. This enabled us to let out more office space and generate more income
for the Association.
Social Enterprises
We are In order to generate more funds for the association and support our aims,
Care
Working with Action Deafness, we help provide personal care to six clients in Cambridgeshire.
The project has delivered over 7,000 hours personal care in the year with carers who are
proficient in British Sign Language. This means care can be delivered in a way that meets the
client’s needs.
Interpreting
We provided a BSL interpreting service to a student in Cambridge this year and will look to
4 increase the amount of interpreting we do in the coming years through working with other providers.
Our Buildings and Offices
Cambridge
Our building is important and we continued to invest in it through the year. We raised funds to
convert the old snooker/bar room into an attractive office space for our staff who had out-
grown our traditional office. This allowed us to generate more rental income and funds for our
work from the vacated space.
Huntingdon
We also began to share our office space in Huntingdon with NYAS (National Youth Advocacy
Service) and now also rent a smaller room downstairs so we can hold our Open Support
Services in a more convenient place.
Peterborough
We now have two desks at the Allia Future Business Centre in Peterborough which has become
a hive of activity for our staff and volunteers. Allia is conveniently placed, has excellent facilities
and allowed us to grow our operations in Peterborough.
March
We opened a monthly Open Support Service in March at the Town Hall building. We rent
a small, low-cost office to provide this service.
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Support and Advocacy
Our Support and Advocacy Team is a vital source of support for deaf
people in our area.
Cambridgeshire
Our Cambridgeshire County Council contract entered its 5th year and saw a dramatic rise in
referrals. This is due to a change in the way we report referrals but we also saw more deaf
people than ever come forward for support on a wider range of issues. We supported 100
deaf people across the County.
Peterborough
In Peterborough we opened our new Open Support and Advocacy service to fill two needs. The
first is to provide deaf people with an equivalent to a ‘helpline’ that is offered under the Total
Voice Advocacy partnership. We help deaf people identify if they need advocacy and make
the referral if necessary. If the issue is not advocacy we can either support or refer on to other
organisations. We supported 70 deaf people in Peterborough with 260 issues.
Advocacy
We invested in the training of our staff in the year with three members of staff undertaking
formal training. This ensures we have the skills to best advocate for our clients. We provided
independent advocacy to 96 people in the year on a range of issues many including advocating
for deaf people, in court situations. Health was the number one reason people sought advocacy
support from CDA.
Freedom Programme
We continued to provide anti-domestic abuse training for deaf women with the support of a
grant from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils. We are the only place in the UK where
the Freedom Programme is available in British Sign Language. The course is aimed at keeping deaf
women safe from domestic abuse and help them recognize what it is and then escape it.
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Suzanne Foulstone
In April we received the tragic news of the passing of a long-time volunteer and community
figure, Suzanne Foulstone who died in a road traffic accident. Many of her friends were affected
by her death and the association did what it could to support those people. We arranged a
memorial meeting to take place in the following days to give her friends an opportunity to come
together, reflect on her life and share their memories.
In addition using money donated in her memory we arranged for a driving safety and awareness
course to be held in Peterborough to educate the deaf drivers on how to increase safety on the
roads. Further, we paid for a professional counsellor who is fluent in BSL to provide group grief
counselling to members of the deaf community who wanted support to come to terms with
their loss.
Drop Ins
Attendance at our Drop In events and social events increased by 74% from 2016 to 2017 to 2659
attendances by deaf people, professionals and others.
Our drop ins are an opportunity for deaf people to socialize, receive useful information or refer
in for support or advocacy. Our drop ins are visited by guest speakers from other organisations
74% too.
Sky Watchers
Sky Watchers is a group run by Trustee Godfrey Palmer and volunteer David
Kettle. The group met regularly and focused on topics relating to astronomy.
Theatre
We worked with Jumped Up Theatre during their Platform8 festival which saw two productions
with BSL interpreting put on at the Undercroft Theatre in Hampton. We have developed a good
relationship which we hope will lead to more accessible theatre in the years to come.
Deaf Clubs
We continued to host Cambridge Deaf Club which runs each month and is run by independent
volunteers.
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Deaf Church
Cambridgeshire Deaf Church continued to meet at our building in Cambridge on a monthly basis
for lunchtime bible study. The Deaf Church is an important element of the lives of a group of
people within the deaf community and CDA shares information about church activities on our
website and newsletter.
JCI
JCI Cambridge are the local branch of an international organization of young people who want
to make a difference in their local communities. JCI fundraised for us during deaf awareness
week and held an event at our hall about building confidence. The attendance of deaf people
was disappointing but we continued to work together and put on a more successful event later
in the next year.
Newsletter
Our newsletter, Cambridgeshire Deaf News, was produced quarterly and well received by the
deaf community. It is a written representation of what information has been provided on our
website and social media in the last 3-months with some additional news and comment from
key people at CDA. We posted the newsletter to 200 recipients, emailed to 100 more and they
were also viewed 1,000 times online.
The numbers of people who have actively renewed their wish to receive the newsletter has
dropped significantly so in future, Cambridgeshire Deaf News will take the form of a more
simple bulletin.
Viewed
1000 times
online
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Campaigning
CDA took the lead in campaigning on important issues
relating to the lives of deaf people in our areas.
Health
Police Engagement
In November we invited the Police and Crime Commissioner, Jason Abelwhite, to meet with the
deaf community. He pledged to do more to engage with deaf people and since then members
of the deaf community have met with him on two more occasions. We have now appointed
Christopher and Tracey Clelland as our Police Liaison Officers who will work to improve
engagement with the Police on an ongoing basis.
Employment
Advocate and Caseworker Matt Wheeler has led our work on improving access to Employment.
Matt has developed a relationship with Clarion who have a service that helps deaf people find
employment and with the local Job Centre. Meetings and presentations have been held at our
Peterborough Drop In.
Volunteering
During the year we had 5 volunteers work with us on a
regular basis to run coffee mornings and cover our drop-in services.
We also recruited Angus McGuiness (Trustee) as a Volunteer
Caseworker and Mary Godden as a volunteer Social Worker.
Thank you to all our volunteers in 2017-18
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Sports
CDA recognizes the benefits that sport can bring to well-being. We also
know that many sports are not accessible to deaf people so with that in
mind we work hard to make sports accessible to the deaf community.
We were pleased to receive Cambridge United’s Sport
in the Community Award in April 2017.
Raptors
Working with National Deaf Blind Charity Sense, CDA led the way in creating a new basketball
team for deaf players in Peterborough. The Peterborough Raptors were born and now have 15
players attending training and games and will compete in national and local tournaments.
In order to improve the standard of coaching, former GB Manager Philip Gardner was recruited
to run the men’s team. Restaurant chain McDonalds were successfully recruited as the main
sponsor for the team’s kit.
The under 13 and under 16 age teams competed at the National Tournament at Manchester City’s
training ground and the under 16’s finished runners-up to Charlton.
Yoga
Working with Sense and the Satyam Yoga and Wellbeing Centre, we provided Yoga with BSL
interpreting for the deaf community. It is enjoyed by a small group of deaf people who regularly
enjoy the sessions. The sessions were held at our building in Cambridge but will move to the
Yoga Centre in Cambridge soon.
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Thanks
Thank
CDA would like to thank all our supporters, volunteers,
you
donors and partners. Without you, we would not be
able to do our work.
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