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Empowering Deaf People
 
 

WELCOME TO REMARK!

Youth and Family services

 

The Remark! Living team supports Deaf people, including those with a wide range of additional needs or disabilities, to live independently and avoid isolation.

Our support workers are Deaf BSL users themselves and therefore serve as role models for the clients they support, making our service unique. We provide extensive training and supervision to all of our support workers and our work is closely linked to the work of Remark! Community.

You can find out more also to make a referral for one of the following service we offer:

Youth Mentors 

Supporting Deaf parents
with Hearing children

Family Support Service

 
 
 
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Youth and Family Support Services Referral Form

 

Remark! is one of the largest Deaf led organisations in the UK and Remark! Living is one of the services we provide for British Sign Language (BSL) users. We work with deaf British Sign Language (BSL) youths and their families including mentoring for teenagers and young adults that would benefit from positive Deaf role models.

The first step is to fill in the following Intial referral form and we will get the ball rolling.

 

 
 

Youth Mentors

 

Our Youth Mentors work with young Deaf people to guide and support them with making positive life choices. Our Youth Mentors often serve as positive Deaf role models and they can help to prepare young Deaf people for adult life and make a real difference to their client's lives.

Youth mentoring can help young Deaf people to avoid the negative social experiences that deafness can bring. Youth Mentors work with young Deaf people to support their transition into adulthood, to help them learn life skills, to find employment or training opportunities and to build better relationships with family and peers. Their Youth Mentor will be with them throughout their transition into adulthood and can help with a range of issues, including:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Facilitating socialising opportunities with Deaf peers

 Life skills (e.g. travelling and budgeting)

 
 
 
 

Supporting with education or returning to education

 
 
 

Supporting young people not in education, employment or training

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Supporting young people with important decisions and life choices

Supporting young people at risk of crime

Supporting with the transition from school to college or college to work

Offering information and advice on drugs, alcohol, sex and gender reassignment

 

Supporting Deaf Parents With Hearing Children 

Being a parent always has its challenges but being Deaf parents with hearing children forces them to face additional challenges every day. For example, one challenge could be making sure that their child's school is providing appropriate communication solutions and support so that they can keep up with the child's academic progress. That, as well as other behaviours that result from parents not being able to hear, makes life very difficult for the parents of a Deaf family.

 

Children of Deaf Adults (CODAs) are sometimes expected to take on various responsibilities that are not appropriate to their age or experience, such as interpreting for their parent's medical appointments. Sadly, in some cases, CODAs can take advantage of the fact that their parents are Deaf and misbehave without their Deaf parents realising which can cause serious behavioural problems as they get older. One common example of this would be Deaf parents being unaware of the language their hearing children are using, and therefore being unable to remedy this and teach them right from wrong. In other situations, there are regular breakdowns of communication, misunderstandings, and arguments at home especially if the child is not keen on using British Sign Language. Not all CODAs are fluent in BSL, and this varies greatly between each family, even to the point where one child is a fluent BSL user and another child doesn’t sign much at all.

CODAs are fully immersed in both the Deaf and hearing worlds and often serve as cultural mediators for their parents as well as being live-in interpreters for them. However, this is not appropriate, especially in professional and medical settings, and can leave a devastating and lasting impact on their mental health and risk being harshly disregarded as a family member.

Here at Remark! we can offer guidance and support. We use our wealth of experience to support both Deaf parents and their hearing children.

 

Family Support Service

Many of our clients have a history of social or emotional disadvantage, communication barriers, neglect, discrimination, abuse, poverty or trauma.

We have a vast number of clients benefitting from 1:1 access to a supportive positive Deaf role model. However, there are still many individuals who feel isolated in the places they spend most of their times their own homes or with their own families.

 

We believe that our Family Support Service can support people such as this and will have a long-term impact on our clients' lives inside and outside of home. The Family Support Service focuses on supporting clients and families in expressing themselves and helping them to develop a stronger relationship with each other based on mutual trust and understanding. Our support packages are bespoke, ensuring that they are tailored to suit the family’s needs. They will also include family signing sessions to work on the family's sign language skills in order to facilitate communication.

This service is in addition to the 1:1 service that we currently offer. Although both services will be able to work together and share feedback with one another on a need-to-know basis to ensure that all areas of a client’s care plan are being met. Our support packages are bespoke, ensuring that they are tailored to suit the family needs.

Our Family Support Workers are Deaf and will be attending the sessions with a hearing Communication Support Worker (CSW) who will have achieved a minimum of Level 6 in British Sign Language. This will give clients and families a greater opportunity to express themselves as the team will facilitate effective communication between them in both BSL and speech. Our staff are fully trained and are aware of the importance of adhering to strict confidentiality measures. However, sharing legal and secure information with schools and children's social care can be essential for keeping children safe and ensuring they get the support they need.

We will support the whole family as a unit to build a strong, stable and loving family network. We will give them the encouragement and tools they need to flourish, break down communication barriers and reach their full potential.