With deaf people twice as likely to experience mental health issues compared to the wider population, a specialist North East service has launched a video campaign to help keep the community safe.
The North East mental health and deafness service is run by the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust and was pioneered by Joyce Pennington - who retired earlier this year. It works to ensure that members of the deaf community can access mental health support.
Now the service has produced two videos highlighting what someone with impaired hearing should do in the event of a mental health crisis - and they've involved two members of the D/deaf community in making the videos, too. One features local woman Anita playing a woman who is contemplating an overdose and needs help and the second also includes contributions from Conor - who helps to sign the information.
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Emmanuel Chan, a nurse within the service, also features and added: "It has been such a rewarding experience to co-create these informative videos with local Deaf people. These videos were created to provide information to the Deaf community in our region, in an accessible format, about what support is available if they find themselves in a mental health crisis."
Anita said: "I am very pleased that I have been involved in the production of this video…It is very important for everyone to be aware of how to improve Deaf people’s access to services.” Conor also thanked the mental health trust and said it had been "very interesting" to be involved. “I would like to thank CNTW for allowing me to participate; it was very interesting and very nice to meet the other people involved.”
The service has highlighted how conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are common within the deaf community - and that it can often be hard for them to communicate with medical professionals who may not be comfortable using British Sign Language (BSL). The CNTW service is the only community mental health health service for Deaf people in England to have a dedicated consultant psychiatrist.
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