BSL Cafe - Leicester

13/06/2026

13/06/2026

Come along to Deaf-initely Women's Volunteers Get Together event in Nottingham! 👇

WHEN: Thursday 18th June, 10am – 1pm
WHERE: Nottinghamshire Deaf Society, 22 Forest Road West, Nottingham, NG7 4EQ

Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nottingham-volunteers-get-together-tickets-1990108963482?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwY2xjawScipNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETB0N241N3ViWEtNU0hHcVFVc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHvLcOL9wAvHCSv9yjDgt5K3OWrKuh_w-5JQ3WAAMVrw4rJaeF1y1n0oIML_I_aem_SRm2DkNwq5pB_lYuubxoVA

This event is for Deaf, Deafblind and hard of hearing women only.

Organiser contact:
Telephone NGT/Text Relay: 18001 01773 828233
Text: 07498 317 090
Email: [email protected]

13/06/2026

Please respond to email in the image if interested.

13/06/2026

Rachael from NHS Talking Therapist and her message: We have long realised that the deaf/hearing impaired community are a group that find access to healthcare services (including our own) a challenge with several barriers both internal and external contributing to their low referral and moving to recovery success.

I have been invited to research the initial stage of the process of access and would like to invite those who identify as deaf or hearing impaired to be involved in this project with me should they wish to by way of answering a short questionnaire which is all focused around access.

It is important to note that this is just at this point focusing on the initial steps of access (how do people hear about us, marketing media, communication, how do deaf community members access support when needed, what might a good point of access look like?)

If you would like to contribute to this project then please get in touch with me [email protected] , alternatively it could be that you know someone from the community and they would like to get involved so please forward my details to them for them to get in touch. This is all anonymous responses in relation to the questionnaire the only criteria is that I do need lived experience people answering the questionnaire!

The questionnaire is accessible through the following link to the Improving access for the Deaf Community to NHS TT questionnaire
https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/UzNnLcKVkJ

Thank you so much for offering to share it far and wide for me within the community. Have a great rest if your week. Rachael Lapping

08/06/2026

Remind of BSL Cafe Leicester on 13th June at 10am in Attenborough Arts Centre

23/05/2026

“It definitely gave me more confidence and knowledge to extend my SSE (Sign Supported English) with Beatrice.”

From baby sign to SSE and BSL, funded courses opened doors to the challenges and joys of using it to connect.

"Before I had Beatrice, I thought ‘baby sign’ classes sounded like a good idea. But when we found out Beatrice was deaf, I realised British Sign Language (BSL) was the way to go for us.

When she was tiny, I attended a couple of family sign courses on Zoom, and when she was 4 months old, we started going to Tiny Talk baby classes. This was great, as it taught me lots of useful signs to use on an everyday basis.

When Beatrice began to talk, her signing dried up, which is apparently very common.

I am very keen that Beatrice has deaf peers and, in future, can feel at home in the deaf community. She currently goes to a mainstream preschool and will go to mainstream primary school in September, so she won’t have the opportunity to be immersed in signing. That’s why it felt like a good idea for me to formally learn some BSL – that way, I can support her when she has more interest.

Having done a short introductory course funded by our local family group, I had the good fortune to get a place on the Level 1 BSL course with the Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD), which was funded by the National Deaf Children’s Society in partnership with Family Fund.

It was really helpful to be in a class of parents and close family of young deaf children, as we all had the same motivation and shared experience. I found the course harder than I expected, with lots to memorise and some finer points of BSL (which I still haven’t grasped)!

It definitely gave me more confidence and knowledge to extend my SSE (Sign Supported English) with Beatrice, and she has become increasingly interested in signing. Recently, we were in a café, and a Deaf woman saw us signing, and we managed to have a chat in BSL!

Having passed my Level 1, I’ve enrolled in Level 2 with RAD, which is also funded by the Family Fund. My challenge now is to try to remember what I’ve learned! I have some opportunities to practise this fascinating language as our Teacher of the Deaf (ToD) is a fluent signer, and I have various friends and acquaintances who are learning.

My hope is that with a basis of SSE, Beatrice will be able to pick up BSL fairly easily when she is ready to do so."

22/05/2026

Next date of BSL Cafe is 13th June.

22/05/2026

Spoken Language Interpreters vs. Sign Language Interpreters: How Their Brains Work…

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