Manchester Deaf Centre staff were very proud to attend the 2024 British Deaf Association conference at the Hilton in Manchester this April. The conference title was “Early Years: the benefits of introducing Sign Language to deaf children” and MDC staff from both the Children and Young People’s Service and the British Sign Language departments learned a lot about this crucial topic.
We were lucky to see speeches by an incredible range of figures from the d/Deaf community – such as Dr Joseph J. Murray of the World Federation of the Deaf, and the University of Manchester’s Dr. Katherine Rogers – as well as personal accounts from hearing parents of d/Deaf children. We learned a huge amount about how essential BSL is to early years development and got lots of ideas about how to further develop our services at the centre.
MDC received a special shout-out from the Mayor of Greater Manchester! We are delighted to see that Mr Burnham has given a speech about making sure all children are school-ready by including BSL in the curriculum in Greater Manchester. We met one of our amazing trustees – Bryony Parks – for the first time in person (pictured).
One of MDC’s Lead Youth Workers, Mohamed Farah, was chosen to participate in a BDA video (pictured) asking how you would describe the conference in a word. “Big impact!” was the answer.
L to R: Madeline, Bryony (trustee), Mo and Michelle
Mo being interviewed for the BDA video
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, presenting at the conference
Andy Burnham practising BSL with Claire Cummings (BSL Fest Organiser) in preparation for the conference
