Laura Driver: Guest Blog

This blog was first published by The Dignity Project in August 2021.

Can you tell us about your lived experience with disability?

I was born moderately-severely Deaf – and so I have lived with hearing loss my whole life. I grew up wearing hearing aids and attending a mainstream school with other Deaf children, as well as attending Deaf clubs. So, I have had exposure to British Sign Language from a young age, although I am not (yet) fluent in the language. Whilst my brother is Deaf too, my family are mainly hearing, and so I grew up with English as my native language – with a fair amount of lipreading too! When I was 25 years old, I went for the cochlear implant, and it literally changed my life. I hear better with the cochlear implant than I ever did growing up with hearing aids. There were things I struggled to do with hearing aids that I can now do with my cochlear implant – such as talking on the telephone.

You work as a communications and marketing officer at NRCPD in the United Kingdom. Can you tell us about your work in this area?

Yes, that’s correct. I’ve worked for NRCPD for 2 years as their Communications and Marketing Officer. They are the national regulator of language service professionals working with Deaf and deafblind people. I’m responsible for communicating to our stakeholders via our owned channels and for our engagement with stakeholders via social media and our outreach events.

Working in the United Kingdom, which has been hit hard during the COVID-19 Pandemic, how have you found communication in a time when wearing masks has been essential and mandated.

I’m not going to lie; it has been tough. I’m completely fine with wearing masks and others wearing masks too – as it’s important to keep ourselves safe, but it does come with the obvious challenges for those with hearing loss. It’s been mostly fine, as we’ve now adapted and people are more aware of what they can do to communicate, instead of removing their masks, such as writing things down or using sign language. Every now and then, I come across someone – who upon my repeatedly explaining that I am Deaf – continues speaking with their mask on, and not doing anything different to improve the communication. These kinds of situations are particularly frustrating.

Have you been working from home? How have innovations in technology helped you in your work and day to day activities during this period?

Yes, myself and my colleagues have mostly been working from home for the last 18 or so months. Initially, we were having team meetings on Zoom, which didn’t come with captions, so we moved over to Microsoft Teams, which do have automatic captions. It’s been great having meetings over Teams with the captions. Admittedly, the captions are not perfect, but they help a great deal. For big meetings such as board meetings, I work with NRCPD registered speech to text reporters – who are qualified palantypists, and they are absolutely fantastic, and the captioning is of such a high standard.

You recently attended a close friend’s wedding and were surprised to find they had arranged a ‘speech to captions’ screen, so that you could follow along with the wedding festivities and speeches. Can you tell us about this, and how it made you feel as a person who is valued?

Well, it was a complete surprise! I just sat down at the table where my place card was, ready for the wedding meal and speeches – and I found that I was sitting opposite the bride, Sian. I also noticed a screen – not too far away from me – which I assumed was going to show a montage of photographs of the bride and groom growing up. Sian suddenly said to me: ‘Laura, can you see the screen?’ and I said: ‘yes, why?’, and that was when Sian told me it was a captions screen just for me. I was suddenly overcome with emotion, which was gratitude, and then burst into tears! Which then made the bride cry too.

People thinking of my access, especially outside of work, is quite rare. At work, I have the access I need to do my job, but outside of work, understanding what’s going on and being a part of it all, is rare. I was overcome with emotion at the fact that my friend thought of my access to the speeches without my even asking for it – not that I would have asked for it, because I just accept that’s how it is. It was a simple, yet brilliant thing that she did for me, that I will never forget.

What does dignity mean to you?

Ooh, that’s a hard question, but a very good one. Dignity to me in the sense of disability, means having your disability accepted and considered by others in a way where you are equal to those without disabilities. As in – your access and participation is equal.

Do you have a specific incident relating to dignity that you would like to share, or feel others would resonate with and learn from?

I’ve found a lot of society, in general, to not be Deaf aware. Phones are heavily preferred when it comes to consultations and appointments – and quite often, I have a bit of a fight trying to get people and to communicate with me over text or email instead, which I cannot understand – as nearly everyone uses email, and this is nearly always an option. I don’t understand businesses’ need to only communicate with people over the phone. I find it very frustrating as a deaf person.

How do you work to advocate for dignity for yourself and others?

I always ensure that people are aware of my access needs with communication, and I try to raise deaf awareness, especially on social media, where I have had the pleasure of getting to know lots of other fantastic Deaf people.

What work still needs to be done to ensure that everybody is treated equally and equitably in all aspects of life in the United Kingdom?

I can only really speak as a Deaf person with lived experience of deafness, but the UK has a long way to go to ensure that Deaf people are treated equally. Deaf people, myself included, struggle with healthcare. Audiology departments in the UK ring Deaf people to arrange appointments, despite this being a completely inaccessible way to communicate with Deaf people and quite ironic at that too. People could wear transparent masks to aid lipreading and be open to ways of communicating that don’t involve the phone.