- Following a survey of our membership, it was decided that the existing sub-committees would be re-organised into the following 3 sub-committees: Communication and Access, Health & Wellbeing and Education. The Mental Health and Deaf People Task Group would continue as before.
- With Scottish Government funding, a BSL DVD explaining Self Directed Support was made in-house by SCoD staff and distributed widely throughout Scotland.
- We continued to work with NHS Health Scotland, NES and NHS 24 including the Breathing Space telephone counselling project which recruited Deaf textphone advisers with assistance from SCoD. Advice was also given regarding the production of a BSL DVD about bowel cancer screening.
- The first meeting of Scottish Deaf Sports Federation steering group was held at SCoD’s office in June and SCoD has been actively involved in subsequent Scottish Deaf Sports Federation meetings.
- Discussions were held with representatives of the Scottish Police and Scottish Prison service with a view to deaf awareness training being made available to their employees.
- Work continued towards the BSL Bill which will aim to secure BSL as one of Scotland’s official languages thus giving deaf people the right to access information in their own language as a language strategy rather than a disability issue.
- SCoD worked with Heriot Watt University on their BSL Uptake project. This project brings together on one website information in BSL on politics and public policy.
- A roundtable discussion on online interpreting was organised in March.
- The Access to Democracy Project (A2D) held workshops provided by local trainers across Scotland. The Result! DVD explaining the electoral system in BSL was distributed and guided tours of the Scottish Parliament were given to groups of deaf and deafblind people. In November, the first ever National Conversation event for deaf people was held in Glasgow with Nicola Sturgeon, Depute First Minister of Scotland.
- The Counselling Training Project Co-ordinator organised many successful deaf/deafblind awareness workshops for Health Workers and Counselling awareness workshops for deaf and deafblind people.
- The Policy and Research Officer held open meetings in Falkirk, Inverness, Thurso and Paisley.
- Funding was obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Presenting the Past: My Firsts project. Interviews with Deaf people will be filmed and transferred onto DVDs, thus preserving footage and historical information about deaf people and their community which would otherwise be lost.
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