Deaf Awareness Week starts Monday 12 October and Warwickshire County Council’s Libraries and Heritage Department will be actively supporting it. Events will be held simultaneously in all five divisions to promote its services for people with hearing loss.

Current figures show that up to 17% of Warwickshire’s population have some form of hearing loss. In order to make the libraries more user-friendly for the hard-of-hearing, Libraries and Heritage staff have attended special training courses run by the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf). In addition, the department has invested in text telephone system for all the major libraries and a video caption reader service is available in all the usual library video centres.

"Each we take the opportunity provided by Deaf Awareness Week to highlight both the local and national services for people with hearing loss", said Desmond Heaps, Service Development Officer. "Libraries are the ideal place to reach people and we hope that, by the end of the week, there will be better understanding of the services in Warwickshire."

As part of the week’s activities, a specialist from Warwickshire’s Social Services department will be at Nuneaton Library on 13 October, and Leamington Library on 15 October, between 9.30am and 1.00pm, to answer questions about local services and to demonstrate equipment.

"Many people from Warwickshire have significant hearing loss" said Christopher Reid, Social Worker for Deaf People. "We welcome this opportunity to work with the library service to promote deaf awareness, and information on what help is available."