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Employing a deaf member of staff

Hi

We have a resourced provision for pupils with hearing impairments/deafness and employ BSL trained staff including two staff members who are deaf or HI themselves.  However both those staff can lip read and communicate verbally as well as sign.  We have just appointed a new teacher to the provision who is deaf and communicates in BSL only so I suspect he will need an interpreter with him at all times.  I arranged for one to be with him at interview yesterday and I know this is funded by Access to Work.  But I wondered if anyone else has been in a similar situation and does the employee have to apply for Access to Work and arrange his/her own interpreter or do we do it?  Is it likely something like this would be funded under the ATW scheme?

thanks

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  • Hi Andrea

    With all access to work applications i believe the employee has to apply www.gov.uk/.../apply usually after a conversation with the employer to establish a workplace contact who will be approving payments / signing off agreements.

    Looking back on a similar situation with one of our employees, access to work agreed to fund a support worker for up to £10 per hour and contributed to a one off DBS cost. The agreed support period was for 3 years. We also had a report done through Action on Hearing Loss www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/ which explained the full extent of the hearing loss and appropriate actions / communication methods / recommended equipment etc.

    The support worker was then employed by our employee - which we supported with writing the advert etc.

    Access to work should have a general guide somewhere explaining exactly what they cover but i hope some of what I've said is helpful.

    James
  • In reply to James:

    Thanks that is really helpful. The employee has also provided us with some guidance so all seems quite straightforward now.