06 May Contacta gets a personal perspective this Deaf Awareness Week

“Accessibility works best when you don’t have to think about it.”

People’s experience is the backbone of everything we do at Contacta and this Deaf Awareness Week we wanted to get a first-hand account of hearing loss.

As an installation partner of RNID, the national charity supporting the 18 million people in the UK with hearing loss, tinnitus or who are deaf, we work closely with its Senior Corporate Partnerships Manager, Laura Bunn.

Laura has only recently started wearing hearing aids, but hearing loss is something that’s always been part of her life – her mum lives with tinnitus and hearing loss.  But it wasn’t until Laura took RNID’s online hearing test that she realised she too could benefit from hearing aids.

She and our sales executive Avril Mayes have recorded a conversation they had ahead of Deaf Awareness Week, discussing what living with hearing loss is like for Laura.

They talk about the challenges of trying to hear conversations in noisy spaces, how Laura manages in professional environments and the technologies and attitudes that can transform the workplace experience for people with hearing loss.

You can watch the videos on our YouTube channel here.

“I don’t actually think I’ve ever walked into a meeting room and someone has said, as a norm, ‘would you like a cup of tea or coffee or water, and if you would you like to connect to our assistive listening system, this is how you do it’,  It’s always ‘would you like to connect to the wi-fi’.”

Nine million people of working age in the UK have hearing loss but only 65% of them are employed, compared to 79% of people with no long-term health issue or disability.

This week, RNID is encouraging workplaces to sign up for its range of free, simple tools and resources to help employers and colleagues feel more confident communicating with people who are deaf or have hearing loss.

Sign up now, because it does matter at work.