Advocacy and the OHL Community - Part 3

This is my keynote address for the SayWhatClub 2007 National Convention. It was a wonderful convention. Our full coverage begins here.

This is part three of four parts.

Part One

Part Two

Part Four

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Unfortunately interpreters are all too often seen as THE communications accommodation for all people with hearing loss, rather than as one of a variety of possible accommodations that are appropriate to various people. I'm sure many of you have stories about being offered an interpreter to provide communications access and being denied an accommodation that is actually appropriate for you. And that's a real problem.

For every Deaf person who benefits from an interpreter, there are two OHL folks whose hearing loss is profound enough that the only really effective accommodation is a text presentation, such as CART. And for every Deaf person who benefits from an interpreter, there are perhaps a dozen OHL folks who require either a text presentation or an assistive listening device.

So why is it that CART services and assistive listening devices are not as readily available as interpreters?

Why is it that the telecommunications relay services available for OHL folks are much more primitive than those available for Deaf folks?

Why is it that local and state agencies that claim to serve Deaf and hard of hearing people really primarily or exclusively serve Deaf people?

Why is it that if an OHL person goes to vocational rehabilitation for services, they will likely be served by a culturally Deaf counselor?

Why is it that the relay companies, which serve both OHL folks and Deaf folks, have LOTS of Deaf employees, but almost no OHL ones?

The answers to these questions are complex, but an important part of each answer is that the OHL community has done a horrible job of advocating for itself. And I submit that if we want to have the same kind of access to mainstream American life that the Deaf community enjoys, we need to learn from them how to do advocacy, and then we need to do it.

Now the good news is that it seems like this is starting to happen. The OHL community seems to be awakening, and is beginning to understand that it really needs to stand up for itself in order to get appropriate accommodations. And I have a couple of examples for you.

The first example is illustrative of job opportunity notices that are pretty common for agencies that claim to serve people who are Deaf and hard of hearing. This one is for a local California agency. The opening is for a "Client Support Specialist with a primary focus on the hard of hearing and late deafened community". So this is a job working with members of the OHL community.

The first job requirement is, "BA degree in Deaf studies (and note that means culturally Deaf studies), social services or related fields, OR 3 years of documented experience in service provision in a human services setting."

The first desired skill is, "Fluency in American Sign Language and strong background in the field of deafness and Deaf culture".

So what do you think? Do the job requirements and desired skills fit the job description? Are those requirements related to skills necessary to serve the OHL community? Can you see why members of the OHL community might be dissatisfied with this announcement?

I have several objections to the contents of this ad, and I'll share a couple of them with you.

One strong objection is the sign language qualification for a person to serve hard of hearing and late-deafened adults. Roughly 99% of hard of hearing and late-deafened adults are oral. They are members of the OHL community, not the culturally Deaf community. And they don't sign. So why would an agency require that the person who serves them be able to sign?

A related objection is that there is no requirement that applicants be able to communicate directly with clients! I believe that a strong requirement for a person who serves members any community is the ability to communicate directly with the members of that community. For people serving the OHL community, that means the ability to speak clearly and to understand spoken language, because these are crucial for fluid communication. But there is no such requirement in this job description.

So the bottom line here is that a culturally Deaf person can easily meet the requirements for a job serving the OHL population, while an OHL person almost certainly can NOT meet them. The results are predictable. No qualified hard of hearing or late-deafened people apply for the job. So the agency is "forced" to hire a culturally Deaf person who can't communicate directly with the people she is supposed to be serving. So she has to bring an interpreter with her to talk to her clients. And that's a huge issue.

One of the demands that the culturally Deaf community has been very successful in getting met is their requirement that the people who provide their services be able to communicate with them directly. The Deaf community would be up in arms if they were served by counselors who required an interpreter. They just wouldn't put up with it. And yet, when OHL people seek services, they are typically served by someone who requires an interpreter. And that situation goes unchallenged.

We touched on another issue a minute ago, and I'd like to expand upon it. One result of having a sign language requirement for jobs serving OHL people is that it shuts out members of the OHL community from being considered for, or even applying for, those positions. If you look at the agencies that claim to serve the "Deaf and hard of hearing", the overwhelming majority of the people who work there are culturally Deaf. The next largest category of employees are hearing people. There are very few, if any, OHL employees in most of these agencies. They are effectively excluded from what seems to be a natural and mutually beneficial employment situation by these ASL fluency requirements.

I have responded to the dozens of notices and job opportunities like this one over the last seven or eight years. And I've outlined my dissatisfactions just as I have presented them here. In most cases, I received no response at all. And when I did receive one, it was usually something like, "Thank you for your comments; we value your input; we are proud to serve all members of the Deaf and hard of hearing community."

At least that was how it went until March of this year!

Part One

Part Two