Intervenor reception in Parliament

Deafblind children, their parents and Sense Ambassador, actress Rebecca Front joined Sense at an event for MPs in Parliament on Monday 12 November 2012 to call for better professional support for deafblind children.

In these short videos, attendees at the event including parents, siblings, intervenors and MPs, share their experiences and thoughts.

Rebecca Front

"It has been so brilliant to get the chance to meet families, some deafblind adults and children, and some intervenors, some of these crucially important people who work at opening up the world for deafblind people. It's been a real eye-opening experience and, yes, fabulous to come to the House of Commons and actually see some of these people at work."

Deb O'Shea, team leader of the Sense intervenor service

"Hi, i'm Deb, I'm the team leader for the intervenor service at Sense. We support children and adults with sensory impairment and communication needs. We support the service users to access different activities, which they may not be able to do without the support of an intervenor, and we also support the families. We have been specially trained so that the family feel reassured that their family member is able to access the community and different activities that they wouldn't be able to do without the support of our service."

Emily, who has a deafblind brother, Sam

"Hello, my name is Emily Cowell, and I have a deaf and blind and autistic brother called Sam. I tried these to see how it would feel in his position. They're like headphones, except they block out almost all of your hearing, and I tried these glasses. There's two holes here, so you can only see a little bit, and it was really hard and it felt really strange when I was doing it, but it wasn't too bad, I could still see through the holes, but it felt almost as if the room was smaller than it really was."

Dan Rogerson MP, who hosted the event

"Hi, I'm Dan Rogerson, I'm the Lib Dem MP for North Cornwall. I'm here hosting a reception for Sense. I've just had the chance to travel around the room guided by someone wearing some special glasses and ear defenders which retricted my vision and cut out the sound. It really affected my ability to communicate with some of the people I met, which was very disconcerting to me as a politician, as that's what I need to do, to interact with people and to communicate with them. I instantly became very dependent on the person who was guiding me around, so it was a very useful introduction to some of the challenges people here are facing."

Graham Evans MP

Graham Evans MP wears a blindfold and ear defenders to find out what it's like to have no vision or hearing.

"Having my sight and my hearing removed very suddenly was an interesting experience and having to rely on somebody else to show me round a very busy and noisy room, was a very good exercise to give me an indication of what it's like for people with poor eyesight or who are deaf or poor of hearing."

Jenny Fletcher, Deputy Head of Sense Children's Specialist Services

"A deafblind child needs an intervenor to be able to access information and communication, the environment, and interaction with other people. All the things that you would expect a sighted, hearing child to access. An intervenor is the mode, is a person who connects between the child and the activity they're accessing."

Nicky, parent

"Hi, I have an intervenor. She comes three hours a week to look after my deafblind child. He absolutely adores her, because she does everything that mummy doesn't do, and I get to spend quality time with my daughter, which she really enjoys, as having a deafblind child takes up all of our time."

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