Deaf awareness training providers: Jeanette
I was born hearing and had a hearing upbringing – when I left school I worked for Essex County Council as a short-hand typist. I then moved towns, got married and worked for a national building society for 9 years as cashier/mortgage clerk.
In 1985 I suddenly lost most of my hearing and this resulted in me becoming divorced 5 years later. It was a very distressing time – I did suffer mental health issues but thankfully I pulled through and am still here to tell the tale.
After two years of isolation I decided to learn sign language to teach my two children – I enrolled on a course at my local adult education centre and visited my local deaf club to practise – from there on I qualified enough to teach the subject as well as deaf awareness and communication tactics with deaf/deafblind. I work for myself as a freelance trainer. I never look back and honestly believe things happen for a reason – becoming deaf changed my whole life but gave me a new beginning.
I have delivered training to thousands of people – some being deaf themselves – and feedback is very positive stating they have gained skills but also a personal insight to being deaf which has in turn given them more confidence to communicate and interact with deaf people. Places to date include Essex County Council, Guys Hospital, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace to name a few.
I mix with both deaf and hearing socially and professionally although I do struggle to lip read a lot of the time even though I am quite skilled at it. I met my second husband through my teaching and we have been together 19 years now. I have a very full and active life but the one thing I really do miss is music – music is so therapeutic and such good company.
I had seen a few shows with interpreters which I loved but then one of my friends told me about captions and so I decided to book a show and find out for myself how it works – I will never forget my first experience of it – Les Miserables – years back – but WOW what a difference it made especially to my husband who is hard of hearing and cannot understand the interpreters. It was wonderful to be able to keep up with the dialogue and songs and be fully aware of what was happening and not just sitting there pretending we were enjoying ourselves and understanding.
A short while ago I went to see Dreamboats and Petticoats with captions– I remember most of those songs from my hearing days so was really looking forward to it – can you imagine my horror when I discovered I was actually fitting my own words into the songs –making up my own lyrics to fit in – no wonder people don’t like my singing – but I am not worried about that as I can’t hear it.
Communication is so very important in our lives – without it we have nothing. You can be the richest person on earth but without communication you can also be the loneliest.
One of our training providers, Jeanette teaches deaf awareness and basic sign language. She has been teaching communication skills for the last 20 years and has been with 121 Captions for over 10 years. She qualified as a Trainer/Assessor for Communication Tactics with CACDP and holds NVQ Business Administrator Assessor D32/D33 qualification, for which she received trainee of the year award from Southend College in 1997.
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