Earlier this week, I introduced my supervisors and the hearing and deaf professionals I have on my advisory board. The final group I want to introduce is my parent involvement group.
They. Are. Wonderful.
This is a photo of our first meeting in December 2020:
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Unfortunately, there are two parents missing here. They were unable to attend the group session, so we are catching up a little later this month.
In total I have ten hearing parents of deaf children in my PPI (patient and public involvement) group. Ninety percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents and so it’s super important that this group are able to engage in the project’s development. They will be involved throughout the entire research process. One of their main tasks will be to co-produce the EPID tool and training materials, which will help to ensure the tool is accepted and seen as useful by parents and professionals alike.
With such a small number, my parent PPI group can’t be representative, but I do have a wonderfully rich range of families involved. Within the group I have parents from in and out of London. I have parents who are white, Black and from other ethnic groups. I have parents who were not born in the UK. I have parents who have slightly older children and parents whose children are within the 0-3 age range. For those parents with older children, their children attend a range of educational placement; mainstream schools, specialist units, and specialist deaf schools. This also means that we have a range of communication mode being used.
This post is just to introduce them for now… I have a few more posts planned where I will share how they have impacted my project for the better already.
‘Martina! How did you recruit this amazing bunch?’ I hear you ask… Well I made the video below, and as well sharing it with my own networks, members on my advisory board used their networks too. Here it is: