All Party Committees (Wales).

ATR's Open letter to BDA Cymru, disputing they are actively participating in this area, and indeed not addressing issues BSL users face in Wales either, relying on campaigns developed elsewhere by non-Welsh deaf.

"ATR's own experience of APC at the Senedd is that nothing ever happens at all, indeed, I gather that the RNID stated the same thing, and threatened to pull out (twice), at the time, as the RNID was footing the access bill for those attending, and later withdrew much social online access in Wales due to lack of interest from grass roots.   

The BDA also refused to devolve their charity sites to localised control, taking away the ability of Welsh deaf to decide themselves how support/access and Inclusion should proceed, given, the Welsh need is entirely different from other regional areas, but we have no effective say. It goes without stating, the BDA shows no support to the majority of Welsh deafened, or hard of hearing in Wales, being a secular organisation.

Who is talking for Wales?  Leeds/Manchester/London BDA?   The last  APC  'meeting' never took place in person, but was done online in July last year. Just who knew about it?  Most deaf I talked to had no idea an APC actually existed, let alone saw the 'Zoom' thing.

Prior to that, there were 3 years when hardly any viable meeting took place at all, one or two meets a year if that.  Requests at the time from grass roots to participate, were refused outright, including a request ATR made to respond to one issue. Sadly BSL was then used as a 'barrier' to participation, as the BDA insisted on the 'D' approach, side-lining 300,000 with hearing loss in Wales.

At the end of the day, we are told grass roots cannot attend or represent at APC as the Senedd recognises only their representation, this is a 'rule' via all government centres apparently, but Wales?  There is an option to make it public, and we know,  the Senedd website is not going to be accessed by deaf people. It's a complete travesty of a website, that defines deaf people via 11-13 alternative descriptions, it is impossible to get any accuracy or detail from it, deaf areas are duplicated 3 or 4 times, under different headings.  This appears to be a major discrimination against grass-roots deaf of all kinds, as charities make the decisions, in essence, behind closed doors.  In effect nobody is represented except a few sign using deaf.

Neither the BDA or RNID have a mandate of Welsh membership TO represent, i.e. if we are to attach any validity to the RNID and BDA's own statistics.    It is widely agreed by most areas the APC is a pointless exercise, and the BDA/RNID operating singularly and in a vacuum.  There seems to be a lack of awareness that Wales has no  deaf schools any more, and that mainstreaming has proven a huge success, despite BSL areas criticising at every opportunity.  Neither does Wales have a BSL Act, apparently the fact Wales recognised BSL many years before the BSL Act was mooted, was ignored by the BDA.

The fact Wales is the best-served area for BSL users in the UK, having a surplus of BSL interpreters due to fewer deaf using BSL, and the BDA itself on record, as providing support for deaf to use unprofessional support (families, friends, etc), if they so chose.  This included e.g.  'mentors', many of whom did not possess qualifications IN BSL, and were ungoverned, and unmonitored regarding privacy laws, and neutrality, professional BSL terps are, some are actually their own friends, who had access to their private lives. One rather telling fact, is that according to the BDA itself, only 1% of deaf BSL users, appear to have any qualifications in it.  So the BDA is campaigning for access they cannot effectively use, BSL?

All current campaigns regarding BSL are aimed at awareness for HEARING people, given the reluctance by all regional governments to endorse BSL itself.  Also targeting children and young people, because they fail to connect to adults.  Overall, there is a 'hype' around BSL that is ignoring the realities for deaf people. We still have deaf people leaving school and then plateauing, and further education and training simply doesn't happen, even literacy improvements don't.  Perhaps the BDA needs to look AT deaf people and BSL and recognize where the need is.  

As my blog will verify, the ability to advance academically for deaf people, cannot happen because BSL lacks academic, and reference signs to teach with.  Perhaps the BDA really does need to start at the ground and build BSL up as a viable language first, and not just a glorified social tool?  What is clear, is that Welsh deaf and hearing loss charities have lost any sort of awareness about their own area."