“The National Deaf Children’s Society have recently collaborated with Anna Freud on a new resource for the early years. ‘Deafness and me’ is a toolkit for early years practitioners to support the mental health and wellbeing of deaf children. Produced as part of Anna Freuds’ ‘Early Years in Mind’ series, the guide aims to help early years practitioners to understand the barriers that deaf children may experience and provides information and activities to build positive mental health. The information and activities are based around three key areas:
- Building a sense of belonging and deaf identity
- Forming relationships and being social
- Understanding feelings and emotions.
The toolkit is designed to be accessible to any early years practitioner, including those with little or no previous experience of working with deaf children. The activities can be enjoyed by both deaf children and their hearing peers, creating a foundation for positive self-esteem among deaf children and strong deaf awareness among hearing children.
You can download the toolkit via Anna Freud’s website. A list of the downloadable resources referenced in the resource is available at www.ndcs.org.uk/deafness-and-me.
If you have any feedback about this toolkit or other NDCS resources, please take our short survey.”
