Sense strives to improve the understanding of deafblindness among service providers and others. We continue to campaign for improved rights and access for deafblind people to the wider community. In 2006/2007, we generated media coverage that reached more than a quarter of the UK population and was 100 per cent favourable. There were over 300,000 visits to our website.
As a result of our See Me Hear Me project 52 deafblind people received training to undertake campaigns, or support Sense campaigns, on their own behalf. Twenty-six of these individuals have now taken direct action which has resulted in specific changes.
Sense campaigned strongly to raise awareness of the needs of the many older people with combined sight and hearing difficulties.In 2006-07 our Fill in the Gaps campaign targeted 175 teams of social workers who work with older people by offering training and guidance.
The raises awareness of the needs of older deafblind people. New guidelines for working with older people were disseminated and 140 local authority workers attended training seminars. These received a very positive response with 64 per cent of attendees saying that the guidelines would definitely alter their practice in the future.
In Europe Sense and partner organisations campaigned for the European Air Travel Directive. This lead to amendments in the directive to make it relevant to the needs of deafblind people.
More information about our campaigns is available in the campaigning for deafblind people section of the website.
