Rachel Hubbard: Director of Deaf Umbrella

Hello my name is Rachel Hubbard, I am the CEO and Founder of Deaf Umbrella based in Bexley, Kent.  I am a single parent to two teenagers, we have a Westie called Pickle who helps us raise funds for Hearing Dogs and a new kitten called Max; my hands are covered in scratches and I am a great taxi driver!

When I was thirteen, my mum suddenly lost her hearing as a result of a medical blunder. My family was plunged into crisis.  We had to cope with her job loss and the trauma she was going through having woken from a severe headache to find her hearing had deserted her and it was 6 months later than the last date she had remembered! We had to learn how to communicate with her together as a family.  This is how I became involved in the deaf community. At that time I accompanied my mum to lip reading classes, all of my family joined a level 1 British Sign Language (BSL) class and we learnt how to use facial expression, body language and hand shapes to communicate.  I loved sign language and found it easy to understand and produce.  Over a period of years Mum and I took more and more classes together and soon left dad and my brother behind!

New business idea

My business idea came during a career break in my 30’s.  I knew how frustrated deaf people were about the long waiting times for interpreter services and their general lack of support to help them find work.  I knew I had the skills, commitment and determination to make a difference.  I founded Deaf Umbrella in 2000.  Why the name? Well, the internet was raining information down on us at this time, information we had never had so readily available to us before.  The umbrella symbol was an opportunity for deaf people to shelter with us whilst they decided what advice was helpful to them!

Being able to watch someone grow and become the very best they can be is very rewarding.  Our staff training, monitoring and mentoring is shaping the communication support worker of tomorrow; this in turn is ensuring that the deaf people within education get the very best support, learning journey and empowerment from their educational experience.  Our relationship with the University of Greenwich is a great example of this.

Our job club, fully funded by Deaf Umbrella, gives us the opportunity to support people in frustrating and often depressing times when they are out of work.  Rosemary, our job club coordinator is a wonderful deaf role model, she is enthusiastic, determined and thorough, we are excited by the direction it is taking, one of our clients have asked us to set up a job club in their premises once a week!  The access to work apprenticeship is another project fully funded by DU that is supporting deaf people of all ages into apprenticeships.  I am very proud of Deaf Umbrella and its wonderful employees, the work we do together and the difference we have made.

Solving problems

Poorly trained staff are one of the issues within the field of interpreting and communication support. The early understanding of one’s ability to cope with new experiences and the building of confidence is a life skill some Deaf people will learn for the first time as they step out of secondary compulsory education and into the world of Further & Higher Education. We therefore believe the workers placed with the student must be highly trained, and we are investing in our belief through our Language Service Professional Development (LSPD) training course.  We have experienced more and more Further and Higher Education establishments turning not to the qualified individuals who know about working boundaries, support strategies, have subject specific knowledge and are skilled communicators, but to cheaper alternative support that keep the funds in the bank, but fails to invest in the individual student’s capabilities and wish to acquire knowledge of their potential learning outcomes.

Deaf Umbrella is happy to interview Level 2 Signers/CSWs as long as they have an ongoing commitment to their career development and are equally committed to their studies and achievements.  Unfortunately the Education establishments appear to view Level 2 support as adequate and affordable, a way of filling the role at a cut price rate.  Without the willingness to invest time and effort into staff training and development, Level 2 remains the “cheap alternative” that devalues our profession and short changes our students.

We often hear that a CSW is supporting 3 or 4 students with varying needs in one class.  Without adequate rules, boundaries and
limitations enforced and enhance through appropriate career development and progression, such Level 2 support becomes at best inappropriate and at worst potentially dangerous to the learning outcomes of the student.  These well-meaning individuals tend to become over-committed and extra-attentive to their charges, going above and beyond the requirements of the CSW role.  This in turn leads to over-dependence on the part of the student which in turn impacts upon and often impedes the learning process.

In our view, it is our duty to “educate the educators” – cost and value are not the same and an investment in CSW training and development is not only an investment in their staff, but an investment in their students.  The CSW is a professional role in its own right, and we would encourage all Further & Higher Educational establishments to see this going forward, in order to improve the learning outcomes for all.  Our LSPD Course materials will be available to these College’s & Universities by the summer of this year, this means they will be able to train and “grow their own CSW” to create in-house teams who are trained to Level 4 standards.

I believe that having the LSPD course within the University framework gives us the opportunity to delve deeper into this qualification and create a Degree course in the future.  A Communication Support Worker role is a very valuable one. This role is often seen as a stepping stone to becoming an Interpreter; we disagree.  We believe the role has its own career path and therefore destination.  We have exciting times ahead.

Rachel Hubbard is the Director of Deaf Umbrella. She is passionate about the work they do and their aim, to provide well-qualified and professional support workers to help deaf people communicate in the hearing world. They are finalists in the South London Business Awards for Training & Development and Entrepreneur of the year; the awards evening is being held in the Riverbank Plaza on July 4^th 2013. This has been an excellent opportunity for the company to reflect on what they do, why they do it and the achievements they have made.

Filed in: Real life stories