Upskilling during Sign Language Week

Staff at East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) had the opportunity to learn skills in British Sign Language (BSL) with special sessions arranged during Sign Language Awareness Week 2024.

The sessions were delivered online and in person at Helimed House, the Norwich base of EAAA, by SHBSL’s Stephen Hurley, who is an active member of the local Deaf community with over twenty years’ experience of delivering BSL courses and workshops. EAAA staff and clinicians were invited to learn some basics of British Sign Language; this included greetings, introductions and finger spelling names. It was organised by the charity’s employee-led wellbeing group, which sits alongside and complements the support and development opportunities already available to EAAA staff.

A visual means of communication, BSL was recognised by the UK government as an official minority language in 2003. Currently, it is estimated that around 151,000 Deaf people use BSL along with others who use it for family or work purposes (source: SHBSL).

Stephen Hurley says: "Learning just some very basic signs is crucial for emergency personnel, you never know where or when you might meet someone Deaf or Hard of Hearing.  Knowing just a few words could make all the difference to the outcome of an assessment with a Deaf person in crisis. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) and all credit to them being forward thinking and putting British Sign Language on their agenda."

EAAA strives towards giving everyone the best chance of surviving and recovering from a life-threatening emergency, through the delivery of exceptional 24/7 out-of-hospital critical care, aftercare support for patients and their families, and the delivery of life-saving training programmes in the community. The charity was named as one of the best places to work in the UK by The Sunday Times in 2023.

Sarah Atkins, Director of People and Culture, and Deputy CEO says: “We are really thankful to Steve for supporting colleagues at EAAA to begin to learn British Sign Language. EAAA is an organisation that cares for its staff, its patients, its volunteers, its donors, and local people. Additional skills, such as this, align with EAAA’s core values and help us to connect even more deeply to the community we are proud to serve.”

Thank you to SHBSL for the amazing support.