This survey is important for our members to complete and help us to understand what our Deaf Community wants and to see what we can do. We have a few questions to ask you - which will relate to our upcoming Special General Meeting in February 2022. We want to hear from all of you and make sure we are going in the right direction. It will only take you 10 minutes.

• First section - Membership
• Second section – Awards
• Third section – Colin Allen AM Lecture

We look forward to receiving your response and will share the results with you all when it is available.

Hello! I want to let you know the Auslan Shop will close because of Christmas and New Year of course. That means from the 24th December we will be closed until the 3rd January. So we will be back on the 4th January but you can still make online orders, and when I’m back on the 4th January I will start processing all your orders and prepare to send them out, ready for you onwards. So we wish you all a great enjoyable time with your family and friends. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you next year! 

Hello I’m June, I work for Deaf Australia in Project Support Officer role. I look after things like video editing, filming and other jobs. I’m so excited to be a part of an awesome team to make improvements for the future. See you soon. 

Hi my name is Simon, this is my sign name, I work as a Project Manager for Deaf Australia. I’m really so excited to make sure the projects are successful and benefit the Deaf community. 

Hello my name is Ipek, I’m a new staff member here at Deaf Australia and I work in a Project Support Officer role. It’s so exciting to be involved with Deaf Australia advocating so much for the Deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind community. See you soon. 

Hello I’m Jen Blyth, CE of Deaf Australia. I thought I would do one last update for 2021, maybe you think I look slightly relieved and yes I am, it’s been such a busy time since August, lots of things have been happening since I started.

The team has expanded, we started with four or five staff and there are now 11 staff members in the team. It’s a really amazing team of people, I feel just honoured really every day seeing the amazing skills and knowledge and contribution to the organisation and the Deaf community the staff are making, and I feel extremely proud to be part of this amazing team of people I get to work with every day.

We have achieved many different things throughout the year:  

• We’ve set up the TTT thanks to some staff who have previously worked with us and some that are still working with us, this ensures we are updating the community regularly with information.  
• We have also held many, many webinars which have been really popular and quite a success, people seem to love them. They are also up on the website so if you think you have missed one or perhaps want to watch it again-you’ve got your own free Netflix right there on the Deaf Australia website for you to watch. 
• We have met with countless different organisations and meetings, not just me but the team as well 
• We have also been really busy preparing and looking ahead to 2022, what can be achieved and also seeking more funding to ensure we succeed into the future and carry on the legacy of Deaf Australia in the years gone by and all the different CE’s, managers, board members that have been involved in the past and we want to continue that into the future.

I do have some exciting news to share. We recently pitched to SBS after they did a call out for people who are interested in creating podcasts (you know that hearing thing where people talk and tell stories). We suggested an Auslan podcast and they agreed so we will have an SBS Vodcast (video Podcasts) for deaf people to talk about Deaf related content, it will be available to watch on SBS and we will share on our platform also. Hearing people can also watch and find out more about what it’s like to be part of the Deaf community. I’m extremely excited about that particular project.

I want to say thank you to all those people who contacted me about their NDIS plans for their deaf children. I received lots of submissions and I do encourage you to please contact me and submit your story if you haven’t already. It’s a really important topic and the NDIA are aware that I am collating this information, but I want to collect as much information as possible. Please do send me your stories, if you would like to contact me and let me know about your family situation, I do need certain things: your child’s participant number, where you’re located, a brief summary about your story and details regarding if you’ve been to a review, if you have made a complaint or if you have been to AAT, what processes you’ve been through with the NDIS. That will really help with me with my advocacy with the NDIA. 

In the previous update I spoke about our focus on education sector for the Deaf community. I only received one or two submissions. I would love to get more submissions to help us build understanding for our advocacy work in this area.

I also want to let you know that in February we will have an SGM, at the recent AGM this was announced and this will be held in February, date to be announced in January. The board will be there in person and at that time will talk about a few different things: we will talk about our membership system, what the structure of the membership should be, the awards, and the Colin Allen AM Lecture with this TTT there is a survey so please see fill this in.

In the last CE update we introduced our new DRC advocacy officer, this TTT includes introductions from three new staff members so we have grown but that’s it for now.

I also wanted to add we recently had a Q&A with the CE and there was some brilliant questions - that was quite successful so we have decided we will hold another one on 13th January. We will promote it a bit more closer to the date but perhaps with this Q&A with the CE there’ll be less questions because of holidays or maybe there’ll be loads because you’re bored over the holidays and thinking all about what Deaf Australia could achieve and discussing this with your family and friends over the Christmas period, I’m sure you’ll be doing that, right?

Thank you for your support over this year, the team really feel quite supported from the Deaf community and I feel very supported. I also have had some criticism but I really do welcome that because I really appreciate that it helps us to improve and make things better. Any feedback or advice or information that you give us we take on board, and we really believe in transparency and accountability to the community. We believe in making sure we are achieving what you want and need from Deaf Australia as your peak advocacy body.

We look forward to 2022 I think it will be an amazing year with all the things we have planned for you and I hope you will join us on our journey.  Thank you, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all. Please stay safe. 

Hello, I’m Jen Blyth, CEO of Deaf Australia. I have a really brief update for you all this week. Exciting news; I’ve recruited 4 new staff to join us. You’ve already seen one video from Edan; he now works as a DRC advocacy officer. When we receive videos of introduction from the other three, we will release them for our next TTT newsletter.

One of my current advocacy focuses is on deaf children and NDIA plans; many want Auslan for their children yet this has been rejected. They focus on speech and occupational therapy only, disallowing access to Auslan. If there are requested plans to access both speech and Auslan it’s still refused; there is an insistence on speech only. I and Deaf Australia disagree with that. We have told NDIA that this is an issue. 

We want to hear from you all, from families and friends with deaf children; if their NDIA packages don’t include access to Auslan we want to know about it. We want to provide the NDIA with significant numbers to advocate for the right to include Auslan.

I also want to let you know that the WFD will have their conference in Thailand next year from 20th to 22nd April and applications soon close. They’re keen to have people apply, yet at the moment there are not many applications received. They need people to apply for the opportunity to attend the congress. We’ll keep you updated if the situation changes especially with this new strain of COVID19. 

I’ve observed that education for deaf children is one area of concern and would like to know what your experiences were or are. It doesn’t matter if you finished your education a long time ago, or if you’re currently attending school or if you will attend; I’m keen to know what it was or is like for you.

As always you are welcome to contact me any time, if you have feedback, you can contact me and the team. Thank you and enjoy the summer ahead!

Hello. I am Edan, Deaf Australia's representative for the Disability Royal Commission. 
 
I will be collecting all the information we can get and writing it up to submit to the DRC in English and Auslan about a wide range of topics including interpreting issues, education for deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing children and access to Auslan. If you would rather contact the DRC directly (which I also encourage you to do), there is a new confidential SMS number, which is 0459 906 629 and there is a link to the video explaining further. 
 
I look forward to helping the government understand how to create a brighter, more accessible future for Australian Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Deafblind people.

Edan's email address is [email protected] 

Hello, I’m Jen Blyth, CE of Deaf Australia. I have a brief update for you all.

We had our AGM recently and we also have our annual report which is now available for you to access on our website. 

We also have a new makeup of the board;

• Debra Swann 
• Adrian Doyle 
• Irene Holub 
• Debbie Kennewell and
• Ivan Callaghan. 

I congratulate them all for joining us.

We also announced the winners of the Dot Show Young Writers Competition. You’ll see who they are in the TTT newsletter. I congratulate all those who submitted stories to us and also to those who won first and second places.

I want to let you know that we’ll soon have a CEO Q & A session, to be held online on zoom and Facebook. People can ask us all sorts of questions they may have. The aim of this session is to ask any and all sorts of questions you may have. We might have some questions of our own to ask. You might have questions about Deaf Australia, about the CEO, the staff or questions about something you want Deaf Australia to provide; you can ask at the session. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss with you all.

Thank you. Have a good week.