Sarah Henry, Senior Development Manager Expand Sarah joined AVUK in April 2023 as Senior Development Manager to support our 10-year vision to help all families who want their child to be able to listen and talk to access Auditory Verbal Therapy. Sarah started out in the private sector working in the financial marketing world but in 2018 made the jump into the charity sector. Since then, she was worked for Carers Trust and Royal Voluntary Service managing their national corporate partnerships and business development. Sarah was also a Trustee of the London branch of the RSPCA and is passionate about volunteering. Sarah generally works Tuesday to Friday between 9am and 6pm, with flexible Mondays. Email: [email protected] Pronouns: She/Her
Sarah Hogan, Research Coordinator, Senior Auditory Verbal Therapist and Bicester Clinical Lead Expand Clinical Scientist (Audiology), DPhil, PgDip Auditory Verbal Therapy, LSLS Cert AVT® Sarah was awarded her MSc in Audiology from University of Southampton in 1985. She started her career as a paediatric audiologist within the NHS and moved to the Welsh Hearing Institute to collaborate on applied research for both paediatric and adult populations. She conducted longitudinal, prospective research into the development of binaural hearing in children for her doctorate at the University Laboratory of Physiology in Oxford. She was the first Clinical Director of The Burwood Centre, an independent assessment centre for children with permanent hearing loss. Sarah lectured on the BSc Audiology at Aston University prior to joining AVUK. Sarah joined AVUK in 2006 as our Research Coordinator and was mentored towards certification, qualifying as an LSLS Cert AVT® in 2012. Sarah coordinates the development of our evidence base through research as well as working directly with families on our programme. She delivers training on various AVUK programmes and presents at national and international conferences. Sarah has several publications in peer reviewed journals and has recently co-authored book chapters with colleagues including, Stacey Lim LSLS Cert AVT; Elizabeth Tyszkiewicz LSLS Cert AVT; Kathryn Ritter LSLS Cert AVT, Denise Hayward and Noel Kenely LSLS Cert AVT; and Ellie Goldblatt and Anita Grover. Sarah works Monday-Thursday 08.30-16.00 at our Oxfordshire centre and remotely. Email: [email protected]
Noel Kenely, Senior Auditory Verbal Therapist and London Clinical Lead Expand Noel qualified as a speech and language therapist from the University of Malta in 2004. He has worked as a speech and language therapist and a sign language interpreter with The Deaf People Association (Malta). He moved to the UK in 2006 where he has worked as a speech and language therapist with different NHS Trusts and as a mainstream teacher at a secondary school in North London. Noel started training with AVUK in 2012 through the Foundation Course which he describes as his light bulb moment when he realised the importance of maximising listening to achieve spoken language. Noel joined the AVUK team in October 2014 and qualified as a Cert. AVT in 2016. Noel leads the outreach work at AVUK and is the clinical lead for the London team. He has a special interest in the use of Telepractice and working with families of deaf children with additional needs. Noel works Monday-Friday between 8:30am- 4:30pm and works remotely and from the London centre. Email: [email protected] Facebook: Noel AVUK Pronouns: He/Him
Alex Kewn, Communications and Engagement Officer Expand Having carried out an internship with AVUK over the summer of 2016, Alex has since graduated from the University of Sussex, worked in communications for a national disabilities charity, and re-joined the organisation on a permanent basis. During his first two years back with AVUK Alex also studied for a Masters degree at University College London, and has since progressed to the rank of Officer. Alex works full-time and is responsible for various aspects of AVUK’s communications including producing digital content and printed material, internal communications, and data analysis. Alex also manages many of AVUK’s events for various stakeholders, including Power of Speech, held biannually at the House of Commons. In addition, Alex is AVUK’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion. In this role he leads on events for staff to come together to discuss a range of issues, and most recently contributed to a Best Practice Language Guide to help all staff in achieving AVUK’s ideals of Diversity and Inclusion. Most recently, Alex has began co-management of Auditory Verbal UK's partnership with Atticus Communications, with the aim of influencing public policy in line with AVUK's mission and values. Alex works full-time between 9am-5pm. Email: [email protected] Pronouns: He/his
Chelsie Nicholls, Communications and Marketing Manager Expand Chelsie has over 9 years’ marketing experience in the charity sector. Chelsie joined the team as the Communications and Marketing Manager in February 2020 and leads on our communications and marketing activities. Chelsie works full-time, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @AuditoryVerbal Pronouns: She/Her
Vicky Parker, Head of Fundraising Expand Vicky joined AVUK in April 2022 as Head of Fundraising to support our 10-year vision to help all families who want their child to be able to listen and talk to access Auditory Verbal Therapy. For 12 years Vicky has led fundraising teams at organisations such as The Prince’s Trust and Centrepoint where she has developed fundraising strategies aligned with strategic aims. Vicky has grown and developed many teams of fundraisers over the years and is passionate about enabling the AVUK Fundraising team realise the organisations vision. Vicky is also a Trustee of the charity A Mile in Her Shoes where she offers strategic direction and governance support to the team helping women move on from homelessness. Vicky thrives on developing meaningful, transformative partnerships so please do get in touch directly if you would like to explore what a partnership with AVUK could look like for you. Vicky generally works Monday to Thursday between 9am and 5pm. Email: [email protected] Pronouns: She/Her
Rosie Quayle, Clinical Advisor Expand BSc (Hons) SLT, Cert MRCSLT, PGDip Auditory Verbal Therapy, LSLS Cert. AVT® Rosie qualified as a speech and language therapist in London at University College London. She moved to Oxfordshire in September 2007 to join the team at Auditory Verbal UK. She completed her diploma in auditory verbal therapy and qualified as an LSLS certified auditory verbal therapist in 2009, after training at Auditory Verbal UK. Rosie has undertaken training in the PROMPT (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) technique for assessment and management of children with oro-motor speech production difficulties. She lectures and delivers training in auditory verbal therapy to parents and professionals across the UK and internationally and mentors professionals towards certification. Rosie was Clinical Lead at Auditory Verbal UK from April 2013-June 2016. She now works as Clinical Advisor, splitting time between delivering training, direct services to families and overseeing the Quality Assurance process for Auditory Verbal UK. Rosie is a Churchill Fellow, having undertaken a fellowship visit to AV centres in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. Rosie works flexibly one day per week. Email: [email protected] Publications Quayle, R. (2021). Using Problems in play to develop communication. SEN Magazine, August 2021. Using problems in play to develop communication • SEN Magazine Quayle, R.A., Ashton, L. & Estabrooks, W. (2020). The Development of Play and Auditory-Verbal Therapy. IN Estabrooks, W., McCaffrey Morrison, H. & Maclver-Lux, K. Auditory-Verbal Therapy Science, Research and practice. Plural Publishing Inc. Estabrooks, W., Maclver-Lux, K., Ashton, L. & Quayle, R.E, (2020). The Auditory-Verbal Session: Planning, Delivery and Evaluation. IN Estabrooks, W., McCaffrey Morrison, H. & Maclver-Lux, K. Auditory-Verbal Therapy Science, Research and practice. Plural Publishing Inc. MacIver-Lux, Lim, S.R., Rhoades, E.A., Robertson, L., Quayle. R. & Honck. (2016). Milestones in Auditory-Verbal Development: Auditory Processing Speech, Language, Emergent Literacy , Play and Theory of Mind in Estabrooks, W., MacIver-Lux, K. & Rhoades, E.A. (Ed), Auditory Verbal Therapy For Young Children with Hearing loss and Their Families and the Practitioners Who Guide Them (pp219-262). Plural Publishing Inc. Estabrooks, W., MacIver-Lux, K., Honck, L. & Quayle. R. (2016). Blueprint of and Auditory-Verbal Therapy Session in Estabrooks, W., MacIver-Lux, K. & Rhoades, E.A. (Ed), Auditory Verbal Therapy For Young Children with Hearing loss and Their Families and the Practitioners Who Guide Them (pp 341-350). Plural Publishing Inc. Estabrooks, W., Honck, L., Tannebaum-Katsaggelos, S., de Melo, M.E., Clem, B.C., Sindrey, D., Katz, L., MacIver-Lux, K & Steacie, P. (2016). Auditory Verbal Therapy in Action: Step-by-Step Session Plans in Estabrooks, W., MacIver-Lux, K. & Rhoades, E.A. (Ed), Auditory Verbal Therapy For Young Children with Hearing loss and Their Families and the Practitioners Who Guide Them (pp 351-472). Plural Publishing Inc.
Gary Rainbird, Database and IT Manager Expand Gary joined AVUK in May 2017 bringing a wealth of IT, Database Management and Research experience from across the charity, recruitment and media sectors. Mainly based at home Gary visits both AVUK centres as required. Gary works full-time Monday to Friday between 9am-5pm. Email: [email protected]
Stuart Robertson, Director of Finance and Operations Expand Stuart joined AVUK in August 2020 as Director of Finance and Operations. He works full-time, Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm. Email: [email protected]
Amy Spicer, Family Support Manager Expand Amy holds a Psychology degree from the University of Southampton. After graduating Amy developed a passion for working in the early intervention field and supporting families with children under 5. Amy became the Early Support co-ordinator for a Phase 1 Sure start Centre in Hampshire supporting families with children with disabilities and bringing professionals together to ensure families got timely and cohesive help from professionals. Amy moved on to work in Family Support in Oxford City Children's Centres and then managed two rural centres, one of which was developed to run as a charity model under Amy's leadership. Amy is a parent educator and able to help with all aspects of family support and bursary funding. Her working days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8.30-4.30pm. Email: [email protected] Pronouns: She/Her
David Tatham, Trusts and Foundations Manager Expand David joined AVUK in April 2020. He trained originally as a Landscape Architect but joined the Voluntary Sector soon after graduating and has over 21 years’ experience in charity fundraising and development, during which time he has focussed primarily on Trusts and Foundations and Corporate income generation. Prior to AVUK David worked in homelessness, supported housing, the arts and heritage and conservation sectors, including ten years at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. David works full-time, Monday to Friday, 9-5pm. Email: [email protected]
Other helpful resources and activities Expand As a response to school closures, National Literacy Trust have developed a comprehensive web portal for parents, to support you during this time. Visit National Literacy Trust Family Zone National Society for Deaf Children are working hard to provide as much support as they can to deaf children and their families.Visit the National Society for Deaf Children website
Elizabeth Tyszkiewicz, Auditory Verbal Therapist Expand I certified as an Auditory Verbal Therapist (AVT) in 2000, and was involved in the founding of AVUK with Jacqueline Stokes in 2003. My last job, at Midlands Hearing Implant Programme, involved an active caseload of children, who were cochlear implant, hearing aid, or bone-anchored hearing aid users, and their families. I also worked with their support teams, providing training, information, demonstrations, and ongoing collaboration. The job involved a range of training and mentoring activities, as well as presentations at relevant national and international meetings. The caseload at Birmingham Children’s Hospital was very diverse, and I have a particular interest in making Auditory Verbal therapy as accessible and inclusive for as many people as possible. The other area I am keen to focus on is training and professional development, so that the skills of teams supporting children who use hearing technology keep up with the ever-increasing opportunities it provides. My activities since I left my full-time position at Birmingham Children’s Hospital have included delivering training, mentoring individual professionals, and providing consultancy services in the UK, as well as in Spain, Finland and France.
Activity worksheets test Expand Washing animals Make animal prints and then clean them up. Making boats Make a boat and make it float. Ice excavation activity Hide small toys in a block of ice for a fun sensory activity. Crowns Make use of the leaves you find outside to make colourful crowns. Spiders Create spiders out of paper plates. Paper plate fans Stay cool with a homemade fan. Rocky Road Little ones will love getting involved in cooking this simple treat in the microwave. Hot chocolate Make hot chocolate together for a tasty warming treat. Bird cookies Mix together birdseed and coconut oil to make treats for your feathered friends. Watch our video on developing deaf children's language through storytelling
Jane Warriner, PR Manager Expand Jane joined the team at AVUK in January 2020. She has more than 25 years of experience in communications including PR and media with a background and training in journalism. Jane leads on PR and is the first point of contact for all press and media enquiries. She works Tuesday to Thursday, between 9am-5pm. Email: [email protected] Twitter:@AuditoryVerbal Facebook: AuditoryVerbalUK
Victoria Watermeyer, Senior Auditory Verbal Therapist Expand LSLS Cert. AVT, SLT, Cert RCSLT, Audiologist, PGCert Hearing and Development Vicky is dually trained as a Speech and Language Therapist and Audiologist and obtained her degree at the University of Pretoria in 2002. Vicky has specialised in delivering audiology and speech and language therapy across a range of different settings to various client groups since qualifying in 2002. She completed her postgraduate Certificate in Hearing and Development at Aston University in 2010. After joining the team at AVUK in October 2012, she was mentored towards LSLS CertAVT® by Jacqueline Stokes, and Rosie Quayle, Sarah Hogan, Susannah Burden and Louise Honck and she obtained her certification in April 2017. She spends her time in clinical work, supporting families and also delivers training on various AVUK programmes for parents and professionals. Vicky has a particular interest in working with young babies (0-24 months) and children with additional disabilities on an Auditory Verbal Programme. Vicky works Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, between 9am-3pm as core hours. Email: [email protected] Facebook: Vicky Avuk Pronouns: She/her
Activity worksheets Expand Washing animals Make animal prints and then clean them up. Making boats Make a boat and make it float. Ice excavation activity Hide small toys in a block of ice for a fun sensory activity. Crowns Make use of the leaves you find outside to make colourful crowns. Spiders Create spiders out of paper plates. Paper plate fans Stay cool with a homemade fan. Rocky Road Little ones will love getting involved in cooking this simple treat in the microwave. Hot chocolate Make hot chocolate together for a tasty warming treat. Bird cookies Mix together birdseed and coconut oil to make treats for your feathered friends. Watch our video on developing deaf children's language through storytelling
Sophie Williams, Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist Expand Sophie is a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist and has been practicing since she qualified from Leeds Beckett University in 2017. Sophie has specialised in working with deaf children since 2018 where she worked in primary and secondary schools with additionally resourced provisions for deaf children. Sophie then went on to work for a regional Auditory Implant Service assessing children who were candidates for cochlear implants and managing their rehabilitation post implantation. It was here that Sophie completed AVUK's Foundation course and offered speech and language therapy according to Auditory Verbal principles to families of cochlear implanted children who wanted listening and spoken language outcomes. Sophie now works as an independent therapist in Yorkshire and volunteers with AVUK at the London centre and online. She continues to work towards certification as an Auditory Verbal Therapist on AVUK's advanced course. Sophie works on Fridays 09:00-16:30. Email: [email protected]
Previous activities of the day Expand Make animals with egg boxes Use an egg box to make creative animal puppets. Use the long part of the separation between the egg box to be the snout of the animal next to 2 round spaces that will be the ears . Cut the ears in the shape closest to the real shape of the animal's ears. Choose pencils or paint to colour the animals. Your animal could be a fox, bear, mouse or a monkey. With younger children talk about the animals they are making: "let's paint pink inside the mouse's ear", "let's paint black outside the fox's snout". For older children talk about what you will do and after ask them: “First we will cut it and then we will colour it. First we will _______ and then _____” For older children use descriptive language e.g. we will need long whiskers, a pointed snout etc. Talk about where the animal might live and then play some pretend role play games with the finished puppet. Water activity The aim of this game is to discover whether objects sink or float in water. Tell to your child that you are going to pick some objects up to take to the container with water. Let them hunt for some too. E.g. When the object is floating say: “Oh, Look… it goes up, up, up” When the object is sinking say: “Oh, Look… it goes down” Download the worksheet Loading the washing machine Encourage your child to help with washing a few clothes. Pick up two baskets, look at which clothes are daddy’s and which are mummy’s. Put a few pieces in a basket and ask for your child to take daddy's sock and "put it in", then mummy's shirt and "put it in". Ask them to press the button to “switch on” and talk about “we are going to wash, wash…” and the clothes will be “all wet”. When finished, use the same routine to “take it out” and “put it in” the dryer or “hang it up" if using a clothesline. Encourage older children to help hang and fold the clothes. Talk about how to fold and/or talk about the colours of clothes and the size of each person's clothes, which are easy to fold and which are difficult. Birdwatching Set your child the task of looking out for birds through the window or in the garden. Agree on a phrase that they have to say each time they see a bird, it could be “I saw a bird!”. With older children you can look for defining features of the bird and make a list of all the different birds that have been spotted. The RSPB has a good guide of birds to look out for. Make a rainbow for key workers Many of us will have seen the colourful rainbows displayed in windows to show appreciation to all key workers. Use the rainbow template we’re providing to encourage your child to colour in the rainbow. With the little ones you can talk about how rainbows always come out when there is rain and sunshine at the same time. With the older children you can talk about the symbolism behind the rainbow as a sign of hope and peace. Ask them how do they feel when they see a rainbow? Talk about your own emotions when you see a rainbow. Download our rainbow template Create your own audiobook We are encouraging parents, grandparents and other family members, to record an audiobook for their children. Choose a familiar story and record yourself or another family member reading the story and then listen to the audiobook with your child. Listen to Frances Clark, LSLS Cert. AVT read her book ‘Violet’s story’ and find out more tips below. Create your own audiobooks Making a Sandwich Invite your child to prepare a sandwich with you. Talk ahead about the type of sandwich you are going to prepare and ask them to think about which ingredients are needed. Ask “what will we need?”. For younger children, encourage them to listen to the name of the ingredients used and tell you what to do e.g. ”mix it, spread it, cut it”. For older children, ask them to think of 3 ingredients and then ask them to bring them to the table. Make a plan about how to make the sandwich: “first we spread the butter, then add the cheese, and then cut the sandwich”. Biscuits Choose an easy biscuit recipe that you like, or use a bought biscuit, talk ahead about decorating the biscuit. “We are going to ice it…yum". For younger children, talk about “mix and roll” until the dough forms and draw their attention to the timer telling them when it will be ready. Perhaps help them to ice a face on the biscuit “eyes, mouth, nose”. ” If the child is older, talk about the ingredients they are going to use, put the ingredients one at a time into a bowl and then talk about which colour they will use to ice it and what picture they would like make on each biscuit. Perhaps a face or a pattern? Bowling Do you have water bottles or juice bottles ? They make great skittles. Play with your child showing them how to throw the ball toward the bottles. For younger child you can talk about “waiting” and “ready,steady…go” You could also use these skittles for a Ling check activity. For an older child you can play a True or False game You say a sentence and they need to say whether is true or false and the ball should only be thrown after a true sentence. Play the ‘mystery bag’ game Use any big bag you have, fill it with random objects, example: a duck, a carrot, a tea bag, a ball, a pen, a toilet roll. Play with your child so that they find what have inside the bag. For little ones, encourage them to “pick it up” and ask “what is this?”. They should say the name and then you say something about the object “oh thanks, I need a pen to write. I need a pen to _____”. For older child, you could play a guessing game by giving them a description and they can then guess what is in the bag or they could close their eyes and feel around in the bag. You can ask them to describe how it feels if it’s hard/soft/squishy etc. They can talk about the shape, size, and texture, then they can guess the object or ask someone else to guess before they take the object out. Curl up with some books Ask your child to pick out 2 or 3 of their favourite books and engage in a productive conversation with them. For younger child, ask them to find the book that has the specific character, talk ahead about the story before you read it and then find the characters together and explore the page with the scene you are talking about. If the child is older ask about their favourite book and ask why it is their favourite. Talk about what might be happening in that story from the front cover and who wrote the book. Maybe ask them if they can remember what happened next. Make sure your child understood the message of the book. Peg Leg Animals Use a toy plastic animal and outline the animal on the paper or if you are confident in drawing, draw your own animal. All animals should be drawn without legs. Use some pegs to make the animal legs. For the youngest children help your child to put the legs on “put it on”; “squeeze the peg” “ Let’s see how many we need. Create a scenario for the animals “jump in the puddle”; “eat the grass”; “go inside/outside the house”, “over/under the bridge” or just have the animals talk to each other. For older children, you can ask what the animals they want to draw, what do we need to do to show which animal it is, how many legs each animal has, what the colours/patterns they have, where each animal lives, talk about the size of animals and maybe what they would like to eat, Easter activities Why not organise a treasure hunt? Hide chocolate eggs around a room in the house and give your child clues to find them (you can swap the chocolate eggs for puzzle pieces, or small toy cars – whatever your child will be motivated to find!) You might start with an empty bowl or basket and talk ahead about the problem of the missing eggs i.e. for younger children you might say ‘Uh oh! There’s no eggs! Where are the eggs?’ For an older child you might explain they need to listen for clues and search the room “Look under something with pages that you read”. Or check out our Easter activity sheet. I spy. Play a variation of the classic game of ‘I spy’ by describing the object that you see. “I spy with my little eye, something that is round, and boils the water”; “I spy with my little eye something that is square, soft and full of feathers”. Adapt the description so that your child can be successful at guessing the object but then see if at the next round you can make it slightly harder. For the little ones you can describe the object by its function “something that we use to eat yoghurt”. For older children ask them to describe an object that you have to guess. Today’s recommended activity is for our younger children (6 -18 months) as we know at this age children love to put things in and take things out. Fill a muffin tin with different toys and loosely secure them in place with a piece of masking tape. Let your child explore the textures and develop their fine motor skills as they peel back the tape and retrieve the toy. This is a great opportunity to practice reading your child’s thought bubble and giving words for their thinking and their message. Acoustically highlight the words for their message and think about some functional verbs that might be useful “pull pull puuuull”, “take it ooooout”, “uh oh!” and “it’s stuck” etc. Spider web doorway. Help your child become Spiderman for the day by creating a spider web in one of your doorways! It’s all about the process, so ensure you talk and involve your child each step of the way. Start by talking about why spiders build their webs and then talk about what could be long and sticky that we could use instead? Get some sticky tape (ideally masking tape so it doesn’t leave marks!) and get your child to help you place strips of tape from one side to the other of the door cross-crossing all the way up. Then make paper-planes or scrunch up pieces of newspaper, and throw them at the giant web to see how many stick without falling. Help to change the bed sheets. This is a routine that gets done regularly. Involve your child by talking about the process. Your two key strategies will be to ask open questions and pause so that your child has time to think about what you said and give you an answer: “how do we wash the old sheets?”; “where are the new sheets?”. Keep talking about the process and give clear verbal directions e.g. “you hold this corner”, “fold it over” and “tuck it in”. Preparing breakfast. Try giving your child some small choices at breakfast. These could be “do you want toast or cereal?” or a smaller choice like “do you want jam or butter?”. For the older child ask an open question such as “what do you want for breakfast?”. Be prepared to talk about ‘why’ having ice-cream for breakfast is not a good idea! Remember to talk ahead about the options so that your child is listening to the verbal options. Create a pretend tight rope or bridge. Place some tape or string across the floor and say to your child that you must walk only on the rope and not fall in the river. Talk about who might be living in the river. A little tip… this game is great for calming down your children as it helps them to focus on walking slowly. Make a hammock for your teddy. Use a pillowcase to tie two opposite corners to the back of two chairs to make a teddy hammock. Before making the hammock talk to your child about how teddy needs a nap. Ask an open question, where can teddy have a nap? Then suggest that we can have a nap in different places not just in a bed. Explain how a hammock can be built. Listen to how the child is copying this new word, are there any sounds that they are finding tricky? Try whispering the word to highlight the consonants. Create a Treasure Den. Place a bedsheet over two chairs or a table and call it the ‘Treasure Den’ talk with your child about what are his/her treasures and then make a list of these treasures that they need to find around the house and place in their treasure den. Make sure you wait for your child to say his/her ideas.
Tanya Saunders - Cambridgeshire Expand Tanya’s daughter, Onna, was born prematurely at 28 weeks, alongside her typically hearing twin sister, Sala. Her hearing loss was initially misdiagnosed but (to cut a long story short!) she was finally diagnosed with severe-profound hearing loss and Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD). She received bilateral cochlear implants a month before her third birthday and started on the Auditory Verbal UK programme two months later. When Onna’s condition was first confirmed, her father and I immediately made the decision to do whatever was necessary to give her the best chance to learn to listen and speak. This involved uprooting our family, moving countries and changing our careers – but we made the decision without hesitation. Onna attends mainstream school alongside her twin sister. She has a one-to-one teaching assistant and although she is still speech delayed compared with her peers, she is chatty, engaged with her learning, reading well, making friends, and loving sports of all kinds from football and cycling to swimming and gymnastics. Read more about Onna here. Tanya said: “I passionately believe that deaf children deserve the same opportunities in life as their hearing peers. I feel that the inevitable and necessary hard work early on will pay off for these amazing children in the long term. It is not for us to set limits on what they can achieve but rather to give them the platform they need to learn, grow, and attain their goals alongside their hearing peers. I believe that AVUK’s aspirational and personalised approach can literally be life changing for deaf children and their families and would like to see Auditory Verbal Therapy become widely available across the UK, as it is in many other countries around the world.” The Saunders family are based near Ely, Cambridgeshire. If you would like to request to speak to Tanya about her experience please email [email protected]
DATA POLICY Expand This policy sets out how Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK) uses and protects your personal information, including data from your use of our website. AVUK is the Data Controller for personal data about supporters, event attendees, training participants, service users and newsletter subscribers. For the purpose of this document we will use the group term ‘supporters’ to describe any one of these groups. Our ICO registration number is Z8932751. We do not trade personal data for commercial purposes and will only disclose it if required by law, if it is necessary to arrange your event attendance or deliver services to you, or if it is with your consent. This policy was updated in May 2018 to show that we are adhering to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force on 25 May 2018. This policy is updated at regular intervals. Use the Contact Us form for any data protection queries.
SUBSCRIBERS Expand If you subscribe to our mailing list, you will be automatically subscribed to receive our quarterly newsletter. You will also have the opportunity to opt in to receive occasional emails about specific areas of interest, for example fundraising events, training courses or AVUK’s research projects. You will only receive information that you have opted in to receive and you can change your preferences at any time. We currently use Campaign Monitor to manage our email marketing who secure, and keep private all data. We transfer all subscribers’ details to our own database. We are in the process of transferring all subscribers’ details from the eTapestry database to a custom-built version of SalesForce. Our database is kept updated with your marketing preferences. You can change your email marketing preferences at any time, by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘manage preferences’ on any of our emails or by contacting: [email protected]
SERVICE USERS Expand When families contact us to find out more about our programme, whether that is in person, by phone, email or our website, we will take some contact information in order to process their enquiry. We will also record some basic information about their child’s medical and hearing history so that we can advise whether or not an initial appointment would be appropriate. At the initial appointment families may be asked to provide further information about their child’s hearing history along with contact details for their local team, ie speech and language therapist, teacher of the deaf and audiologist. We will keep all of this information in a clinical database built securely and with restricted access in the SalesForce platform. If the family decides not to join our programme their child’s clinical file will be destroyed 12 months’ after their last contact with us. At the same time the information on the clinical database will be anonymised and only used for statistical purposes. When families join our programme we will hold information about them and their child on our databases and on the child’s clinical file. We will only share information with third parties where we have the parents’/legal guardian’s consent to do so, unless there is a safeguarding issue, in which case our safeguarding policy will take precedence. Any financial information we collect as part of providing our service to families, for example bank details, payment history, bursary applications and awards, are kept separately from the clinical data, on our accounts systems. Parents on our programme are automatically subscribed to receive our newsletter and will have the opportunity to opt in to additional mailing lists and our closed Facebook group for families. Parents can unsubscribe or change their preferences at any time.
TRAINING COURSES Expand Generally AVUK runs a variety of different training courses for professionals, from short 90-minute online webinars to inset training and longer, distance-learning programmes. We maintain an electronic record of participants who have enrolled on our training courses (their name, contact phone/email address, geographic location) and a register of attendees for individual courses in order process their enrolments and deliver their training. The minimum length of time that we retain these records is three years; for courses that carry CPD we may retain these records for longer. Any financial information we collect as part of providing our training, for example fees charged, payment history, bursary applications and awards, are kept separately on our accounts systems and are retained in accordance with financial regulations. AVUK’s Foundation & Advanced training courses We keep an electronic register of all enquiries specifically relating to our foundation and advanced training courses (name, contact phone/email address, geographic location). Entries on this training register will be anonymised after 7 years. We will continue to use anonymised data for statistical purposes, for example how the professional heard about us, geographic spread, conversion of enquiries to enrolments, etc. For our Foundation and Advanced courses, where participants are routinely required to submit both written and video assignments for assessment, we will use AVUK’s training site in SharePoint to create an individual folder for each course participant. Access to each of these secure electronic folders will be password protected and restricted to the course participant and AVUK's training team (course tutors and specific members of staff responsible for IT/Operational support). These folders will be used for the transfer of assignments, video clips and marked assessments back and forth between the course participant and their course tutor except where a participant’s employer has its own system for secure data transfer that it requires us to use. As part of their training, course participants are required to submit a variety of short 5-minute clips for discussion with their cohort during webinars, and longer full-session videos of them delivering therapy for formal assessment. The purpose of this is to enable course tutors to provide feedback and help participants reflect on their practice and embed their training into their therapy. Alongside each video, the course participant may need to share limited personal information, eg first names of child and adults participating in the session, age of child, hearing history of child (eg level of hearing loss, type of hearing technology etc) and any other medical conditions that may have an effect on the child’s learning and/or behaviour, eg SI indicators, Oro-Motor difficulties, etc. Foundation and Advanced course participants are notified of these requirements prior to being enrolled on their course and are responsible for obtaining the necessary consents from their employer and service users. Ahead of each webinar a member of AVUK's training team uploads the video clips from that cohort's individual SharePoint folders into a PowerPoint presentation so that they can be played to the group during the webinar. The webinars take place using Skype for Business, Teams or Zoom. Access to the webinars is via a secure link, by invitation only and is restricted to that cohort's participants, the course tutor and, if required, a member of the IT/Operational support. Participants are held in a virtual lobby prior to the webinar starting and are required to be “on camera” during all webinars so we can see as well as hear everyone. The webinars are not recorded. At the end of each webinar the PowerPoint presentation, including the participants' video clips, is deleted and participants are advised to delete their clips from their SharePoint folder. The full session videos that course participants are required to submit for formal assessment are not played in webinars. Once they have been downloaded from SharePoint to AVUK’s server they are watched by the course tutor and moderator in order to complete the assessment and are then deleted. Once marked, the assessment is returned to the participant via SharePoint and the participant is advised to remove the video from their SharePoint folder. We do not keep any participants' videos on our own servers or for longer than necessary. Copies of the marked assessment forms will be retained in secure folders on AVUK’s server and will be destroyed no later than 5 years after the training course has been completed. An electronic log of course participants and results is maintained. Our course accreditation requires us to share this information with the AG Bell Academy. In order to manage participants’ training and keep them informed of appropriate training in the future, information on this log will be updated but will not be deleted unless we receive a request for erasure.
EVENTS Expand Each year AVUK organises a variety of fundraising, awareness raising, training and outreach events. When you accept an invitation or register to attend an event we will need your name and email address. In some cases, particularly for training and outreach events we may need additional information, for example your job role and payment details. We will use this information solely for the purpose of administering the event, this may involve sharing your details with third parties who are involved in the organisation or hosting of events in conjunction with or on AVUK’s behalf. For some events we use Eventbrite to manage event registrations. They may contact you about other events that may be of interest to you, but only if you opt in when you register with them. Read Eventbrite's privacy policy. For most events we will not keep your information for more than 12 months but for some training we will need to keep your information for up to five years and we are required to keep details of financial transactions for seven years. Event attendees will be given the opportunity to subscribe to our mailing list if they wish but it is not a pre-requisite of participating in any AVUK event. If you are a speaker at an AVUK event, we will publically promote your involvement via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and emails to our supporters. This data may continue to be processed by those platform providers after the event has ended.
FUNDRAISING Expand As we get to know you, we will collect the following types of information: Name, title/s and postal address Bank, credit card and payment details – we will only use these for the purpose of processing your donation and will destroy them afterwards Contact details such as email addresses, social media links and telephone numbers Your date of birth Information relating to events you may organise or participate in such as the event date, the donation collection method, records of the money raised If you support our Loud Shirt Day Campaign Contact notes relating to your involvement with AVUK or are considering having with our cause, including How you heard about us What kind of connection you have with our charity Your motivations How much of this information we collect depends on the type of relationship you have and the information we build in the course of your relationship with us. We do not store sensitive personal information that you share with us unless there is a clear and valid reason for doing so. We will store your information on our SalesForce database.
WE WILL USE YOUR INFORMATION TO: Expand Provide you with the services, products or information you asked for Administer your contact details and give you the opportunity to change your preferences as well as amend errors and update your data Manage donations (including processing Gift Aid) Support your fundraising activities Help with your activities online. Keep a record of your relationship with us Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted Flag your data record– for example if you request to be removed from certain mailing lists, opt out of any specific data processing, or if you have special requirements We need to keep the details of financial transactions for 7 years after the financial year of a donor’s last gift, in the event of a tax or banking enquiry. We will only contact you to thank you. If you say that you would like to hear from us, you will be added to our email subscriber list and will receive our quarterly newsletter. You will also have the opportunity to opt in to receive occasional emails about specific areas of interest, for example specific fundraising events, training courses or AVUK’s research projects. You will only receive information that you have opted in to receive and you can change your preferences at any time.
WEBSITE VISITORS Expand We use Google Analytics (GA) to track site user interaction. We have GA code installed on our site which creates one or more text files on your computer (called a “cookie”). The cookies contain an ID number which is used to uniquely identify your browser and track each site you visit that has GA enabled. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site and to better understand how they find and use our web pages. With this information we can continually improve the information that we provide on our site and the processes for actions such as contacting us and donating. We can also use it to increase the number of new people finding our site. Google analytics stores the following data: Time of visit, pages visited, and time spent on each page of the webpages Interactions with site-specific widgets Referring site details (such as the URL a user came through to arrive at this site) Type of web browser Type of operating system (OS) Flash version, JavaScript support, screen resolution, and screen colour processing ability Network location and IP address Document downloads Clicks on links leading to external websites Errors when users fill out forms Clicks on videos Scroll depth Google also collects information about you from its Doubleclick tracking and profiling service, from ad-supported apps on your Android or iOS device, from your YouTube and Gmail activity and from your Google account. This data is put together and used to make inferences about your age, gender, interests, hobbies, shopping habits and living circumstances. Your rights If you already have GA cookies, they will be updated with the latest information about your visit to the site. As we cannot access any personal data about you ourselves, we are not the Data Controller for your Google Analytics or Doubleclick profile data. You would need to contact Google directly for this information. You have the right to object to this tracking and to stop it happening. If you would like more details about the methods used however, please get in touch at [email protected] How do I prevent being tracked by Google Analytics? If you are uncomfortable with this tracking, you can take the following actions: Use a tracking-blocker, such as Privacy Badger Clear cookies after every browsing session Install the Google Analytics opt-out extension Third party websites This privacy policy only governs our websites and we are not responsible for the privacy policies that govern third party websites even where we have provided links to them. If you use any link on our website we recommend you read the privacy policy of that website before sharing any personal or financial data. We operate a number of social media pages ([including Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Instagram]). Although this policy covers how we will use any data collected from those pages it does not cover how the providers of social media websites will use your information. Please ensure you read the privacy policy of the social media website before sharing data and make use of the privacy settings and reporting mechanisms to control how your data is used.
EMPLOYEES AND JOB APPLICANTS Expand If you apply to work at AVUK we will only use the information you give us to process your application. If we want to disclose information to someone outside AVUK, for example if we need a reference, or need to get a DBS disclosure, we will make sure we tell you beforehand, unless we are required to disclose this information by law. If you are unsuccessful in your job application, we will hold your personal information for 6 months after we’ve finished recruiting the post you applied for. After this date we will destroy or delete your information. If you begin employment with us, we will put together a file about your employment. We keep the information in this file secure, and will only use it for matters that apply directly to your employment. Once you stop working for us, we will keep this file according to our record retention guidelines. You can contact us to find out more about this.
YOUR RIGHTS Expand As an individual whose personal data is processed by AVUK you have the following rights: the right to be informed – which is what this privacy notice is for the right to access the data we hold about you the right to object to direct marketing – either use the ‘unsubscribe’ button on our emails or contact us directly the right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests the right to erasure (in some circumstances) the right of data portability the right to have your data rectified if its inaccurate the right to have your data restricted or blocked from processing To exercise any of these rights, please use the Contact Us form to get in touch. If you are not happy with the way we have handled your data, and are unable to resolve the issue with us personally, you can complain to the ICO.