Would like to flag up the inaccessibility of counselling training for deaf people too (to add to the previous tweet regarding the lack of therapists in Black/ Asian/ Ethnic/ global majority fields 1/
We’ve received many requests from deaf trainees for placements/ supervisors in certain modalities of therapy (person-centred/ humanistic/ TA/psychodynamic/etc) 2/
But there is no or insufficient funding (not from ATW as not in employment, or Disabled Students allowance which provides not enough funding) for interpreters for deaf people 3/
who enrol on courses, to pay for interpreted supervisory sessions (as there's a huge lack of
deaf supervisors) so these deaf trainees are struggling to gain client hours (100 hours minimum) or 30-40 required therapy hours (in their chosen modality) 4/
Enough is enough. We can no offer support as we no longer offer placements or clients for trainees as we receive no NHS funding anymore in England as the focus is on IAPT/ CBT 5/
leaving all other modalities (&
Patient choice) to not being available to deaf people who may want to choose another modality that is more suited to them? 6/
Hearing people have so many choices of therapies on offer with many organisations offering these.
Deaf people are left with one option- to train in IAPT/CBT for one charity to ensure a regular income and get supervision & client load. 7/
Counselling training is inaccessible hence the reason there is a severe lack of deaf therapists in training as many give up. 8/
To gain interpreters is often left to the deaf trainees to organise. The responsibility often lies with them, increasing the workload & stress. 9/
Lastly, deaf people would often request a deaf therapist for therapy - why? Lived & shared experiences matter. 11/
An interpreter may understand however it is still a one-up position, with a hearing counsellor & hearing therapist- which brings up oppressive issues. Direct 1-1 deaf therapy works better in our experience. 12/
Wow, we’re at 2,999 followers. Incredible! How did we start? June 2016, we decided to set up a deaf-led therapy service, via zoom & f2f. Why? No other service was doing online remote therapies, however it made sense to reach deaf people in places that no one else could.
What did this do? Raise our profile, sustainability & trust developed. We delivered low-cost & accessible therapies to hundreds of deaf people all over the UK. @royaldeaf doubled the £30,000 from #2DeafWalk to £60,000 to create #TalkMore BSL helpline.