Citizens Advice Mid Mercia Receive £30,687 Award
The Access Foundation has approved a grant to fund a digital programme to support deaf people with assistive technology and training in and around Derby.
Citizens Advice delivers advice services from over 3,300 community locations throughout England and Wales, run by 338 individual charities, of which Mid Mercia is one.
Citizens Advice Mid Mercia (CAMM) provide free, independent, confidential, and impartial information, advice and support. The organisation encourages empowerment, promotes good physical and mental health, and helps relieve poverty and distress through provision of a diverse range of services across the communities of South Derbyshire, Derby City, East Staffordshire and Tamworth and surrounding areas.
The digital programme supported by the Access Foundation will provide a Digital Hub for Deaf people living in Derby which houses the second largest deaf community in the UK.
The Hub will provide training for essential digital skills to empower those who are deaf or have a hearing impairment to become confident online. The training will use an accredited curriculum called ‘Learn My Way’ enabling the deaf community of Derby City to learn how to manage money online, search for employment, access training, use public and health services, shop and socialise online.
Sarah Brown Deputy CEO Citizens Advice Mid Mercia;
"We are thrilled to be receiving funding from the Access Foundation to deliver a service to the deaf community in Derby City. As a Citizens Advice we have always tried to be as accessible as possible to all, but over recent years and through our deaf community partners, we realised that not enough is being done to ensure that services are accessible to those who are hard of hearing or profoundly deaf.
The world we live in is firmly operating in a digital world, but we still find access into services such as advice, money management or training is not accessible to the deaf community. Therefore, for us to be able to offer a bespoke service designed to meet the needs of the deaf community makes us extremely proud, and we hope to shape the service with the people accessing it in order to accelerate the support we offer and be as inclusive as possible."
