1 in 3 people are now living with deafness or hearing loss.
40% of people over 50 have a hearing loss. It takes people on average 11 years to seek help, but the sooner you get hearing aids after noticing your hearing loss, the more you will get out of them. Early intervention enables us to adapt more easily to hearing aids, avoid social difficulties and prevent potential cognitive decline associated with untreated hearing loss.
JDA is the Jewish and wider community’s specialist in hearing loss. We’re here to give information, expert guidance and support to everyone living with hearing loss or needing to know more about it.
Hearing Connect Services for people living with hearing loss
Technology and information centre
to book an appointment for professional guidance on coping with hearing loss and improving communication. Our friendly, approachable and highly qualified hearing therapist or expert consultant will discuss difficulties you are experiencing and ways to overcome them.
You can try out specialist equipment enabling you to:
- Be alerted to the phone, doorbell, smoke detector, wake up alarm or baby crying
- Hear more clearly (e.g. TV, radio or conversation) with or without a hearing aid
- Adjust the volume on an amplified telephone
- Communicate by telephone without speech or hearing
Call Gabrielle Renée on 020 8446 0214 or email gabrielle@jdeaf.org.uk
Hearing Connect home visits
What if I can’t travel to JDA to try out equipment?
If you live locally to JDA, let us know and a trained volunteer from our technology team will arrange to visit you at your home. They will give you information about the latest equipment available and demonstrate it to you, so you can see if it’s suitable for your needs.
Call Jodie Walters on 020 8446 0502 or email jodie@jdeaf.org.uk
Hearing Matters at Home
If you are unable to leave your home and your hearing aids need cleaning or maintaining, we’ll send one of our trained Volunteer Technicians to your home to get them working effectively.
Call Jodie Walters on 020 8446 0502 or email jodie@jdeaf.org.uk
Hearing Matters in Our Community
JDA’s latest research shows that many Jewish people with hearing loss are unable to benefit from communal, welfare and support services because they can’t hear – so we are inadvertently excluding one third of our community from accessing the services they need.
Without adequate support, they are more prone to poor physical health, isolation, depression and dementia – and JDA’s Hearing Matters in our Community has been set up to change this.
We offer:
- Free expert, experiential training for your management, staff and volunteers to:
- become more informed about hearing loss
- learn helpful communication tactics
- use equipment and technology to communicate effectively
- Support to help you make your organisation more accessible and inclusive to people with hearing loss
- Information to enable you to audit and assess your environment and create positive action plans
- Guidance and support around hearing loss, for you and your loved ones.
Together, we can become an inclusive community, in which people with hearing loss can access all the invaluable services the Jewish community offers – and actively participate in synagogue, work and family life.
Please see our document containing guidance and information on ensuring that places of worship and community centres are accessible to people with a hearing loss.
Hearing Matters in our Community is run by Padraic Garrett and Andrew Goodwin – dynamic trainers and experts in hearing loss, with decades of experience in supporting professional organisations.
Please contact us on 020 8446 0502 ext 210; padraic@jdeaf.org.uk or andrew@jdeaf.org.uk
Lipreading and managing your hearing loss
If you have a hearing loss, lipreading classes can help you to become more informed and confident and therefore more connected to those around you.
Our lipreading teacher runs lively, stimulating two-hour classes on Mondays at 10.15 am and 2 pm at JDA, Julius Newman House, Woodside Park Road, North Finchley, London N12 8RP.
You will:
- Meet people in similar situations.
- Develop new ways to cope socially.
- Improve your communication skills and knowledge.
- Have the opportunity to discuss common issues.
- Be able to access useful information.
If you are unsure whether Lipreading and Managing Your Hearing Loss classes are for you, please come along and observe a class – you will receive a warm welcome.
Email Jodie at jodie@jdeaf.org.uk or call 020 8446 0502 for more information and to sign up for a free taster session.