Donations and Fundraising: Charitable Trusts and Foundations

Introduction to our work History What is Auditory Verbal Therapy? Our vision Annual reports and financial statements Use of charitable funds Research into outcomes AVUK Trustees Trust supporters Current fundraising appeals Contact us

Introduction to our work
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We work directly with a caseload of around 60 families at any one time, starting with babies as young as four weeks. Children typically participate in our programme for two or three years. The emphasis is on fun ways to learn that sound has meaning and to develop listening and effective spoken communication. Work is rooted in normal child development. There is a strong emphasis on functional language and how it is used, listening and learning in everyday life, nurturing incidental listening and the children becoming confident and appropriately assertive.

Parents and carers are active participants in our programme, participating in sessions with their children and incorporating AVT in home life. A diagnosis of deafness, coming as it typically does soon after the birth of the child, news of related disabilities, or the trauma of meningitis, can be a harrowing experience for the family. While coping with the emotional impact of the diagnosis, parents quickly have to learn many new things - about hearing aids, cochlear implants, health and education services, speech and language development as well as managing all the other daily commitments. At this difficult time the clarity and impartial advice offered by the auditory verbal programme and the practical focus of sessions is especially useful.

You can find out more about Auditory Verbal Therapy in the AVT Approach section of our website

History
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The founding aim of the charity was to make Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) accessible to all young children with hearing-impairment in the UK.

In our first five years we have sought to make a flying start just like the start we aim to give children. We have:

• worked directly with over 200 deaf children and their families to give them a chance to gain age-appropriate listening and spoken language by the time they start school.


• reached many more children indirectly through our programmes of professional training and support


• established the UK’s, and indeed Europe’s, first specialist postgraduate auditory verbal diploma qualification for professionals working with babies and very young deaf children


• moved into purpose-built premises, enabling us to have a bigger caseload, facilities tailored to hearing impairment and the needs of babies and toddlers, seminar and training space as well as a national office base


• demonstrated the successful outcomes of our auditory verbal approach with peer-reviewed research published in a leading deafness education journal


• increased the number of qualified specialist auditory verbal therapists available to work with deaf babies and young children in the UK


• multiplied the range of partners we work with in the health, education and voluntary sectors who can help deliver a flying start for many more deaf children than we can alone

What is Auditory Verbal Therapy?
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Auditory Verbal Therapy is an individualised, auditory, developmental programme, implemented by the child's family in close collaboration with a therapist, with the goal of achieving age appropriate spoken language ability, and full social participation throughout childhood and beyond.

Auditory-Verbal practice is a parent centered approach to enabling children with hearing impairment to learn to talk through listening. It focuses on the use of SOUND (audition) as the primary channel for learning and gaining meaning from the environment. Parents are at the centre of this approach and take a full and active part in every session with the Auditory-Verbal therapist. In this way parents learn to provide the most productive and positive experiences to stimulate verbal communication.

This approach is distinctive in the way it maximises the child's use of hearing as the primary sense for developing spoken language. The Auditory-Verbal option is widely available in Australia, Canada and the USA and there is growing interest amongst families and professionals in the UK.

The vast majority of children born with hearing loss have some degree of hearing which can be improved by hearing aids and sometimes cochlear implants. These can maximise a child's access to sound so that listening, speaking and language skills can be developed to the fullest extent possible. Through the auditory-verbal approach the child develops a listening attitude so that actively attending to the sound around him becomes automatic. Hearing and listening become an integral part of communication, play, education and eventually work.

Our vision
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Vision

Children with a hearing impairment gaining the opportunity to listen and speak as equals alongside their hearing peers.

Delivering our vision

Effective intervention with babies and very young deaf children can have a life-shaping impact on their language and learning outcomes. We seek to deliver our vision by: Giving deaf children an equal start with the goal of developing age-appropriate listening and spoken language by the time they start school Identifying and evidencing ‘what works’ and the implications for services for babies and children Creating opportunities for professionals to gain the knowledge, expertise and training they need to deliver successful outcomes for deaf children and their families through their local service delivery Ensuring that deaf children maintain their early years progress by providing insight and expertise that will enable them to be equal participants in education Ensuring that deaf children with additional disabilities or complex needs are able to maximise their listening and spoken language capability.

Annual reports and financial statements
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Please click on a link to download the .pdf file.

• Five year progress report "Achieving a Flying Start" 2008
• Annual Report and Financial Statements 2008-2009
• Annual Report and Financial Statements 2007-2008
• Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006-2007
• Annual Report and Financial Statements 2005-2006
• Initial Activity Report and Accounts "Let's Talk" 2004-2005

Our Use of charitable funds
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We seek to operate the charity to the best possible standards in achieving our goal of bringing the choice of AV provision to every family of a young child with hearing impairment. We are committed to ensuring that at least three quarters of funds raised are used directly on our charitable goals with spending on fundraising and administration kept to a minimum. In our most recent reporting period, our spending on fundraising was just 8.9% of our total income. The charity applies funds solely for the purpose for which they were intended by the donor. It distinguishes in its management and financial accounts between such restricted funds and unrestricted funds.

Research into outcomes
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Many of the children who attend AVUK close the language gap with their hearing peers long before they reach school-age. Historically, the rate at which children with profound deafness have acquired language has been approximately half the rate of hearing children. A peer-reviewed research study of children attending fortnightly auditory verbal therapy (AVT) sessions for at least a year at AVUK found that their average rate of language development was 1.3, in excess of the average of 1.0 for typically hearing children*. *Hogan et al, An Evaluation of Auditory Verbal Therapy Using the Rate of Early Language Development as an Outcome Measure, Deafness Education International, 10(3) 143-167, 2008. More about this article...

AV^UK Trustees
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Zia Arden (Chair) Dominic Byrne Elizabeth Llewellyn-Smith CB Elizabeth Mills OBE Pam Olliver Rod Walker DL Steve Woolgar

To read short biographies for each of our trustees please click here (opens in new window)

Trust supporters
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We would like to thank the following charitable trusts and foundations who have provided significant support in our first five years:

Current fundraising appeals
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We have a number of projects which are currently in need of your support. Please visit the Current Projects and Appeals section to find out more

Contact Us
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If you would like to find out more about what we do and how you can help, please contact us:

Hannah Burnham Development Officer Auditory VerbalUK Bignell Park Barns Chesterton Bicester Oxon OX26 1TD T: +44 (0) 1869 321492 E: hannah@avuk.org