Making Derbyshire accessible by use of BSL Videos

Derbyshire has the highest number of people living here that are Deaf or have hearing loss living here proportionate to our population.

Deaf people who use British Sign Language as their first language are extremely vulnerable at this time as there is very little interpreted information in their own language around COVID 19. 

Deaf people have expressed that they are worried they will get arrested if they go out, they are worried they don’t know enough information and they are concerned that information has not been made accessible to them from a whole host of organisations and we have a duty to ensure they get the information as quickly as possible in an accessible format.

Deaf people like any other community still need information on domestic violence, parking, Prevent, staying safe, hate crime, mental health and what to do or not do and where to go if they need more information or report anything COVID19 related.

In Derbyshire we want to do the right thing and have started to make some videos based on the general information given out by the force to ensure they get some information in their own language.

We are working on a suite of videos on different subjects to support this community and they have been subtitled and will also include the text to ensure that people who have hearing loss or sight loss can also access the information by using voice text etc.

To find out more about how the deaf community can use our services, please see this page on our website.