See below an update from NDCS
“Last year, we carried out a survey of deaf young people to ask about their mental health and emotional wellbeing. We included some questions from the Good Childhood Index to allow us to make some cautious comparisons between deaf and hearing children.
A summary of the findings can be found at:聽
A summary of the key findings is shown below:
- In the past year,聽66.4% of deaf CYP wanted or needed help with their mental health, compared to 22.7% who did not. A total of 60.9% of deaf CYP received the help they needed, but 23.6% did not.
- 62.8% of the deaf CYP we surveyed had 鈥榟igh鈥� well-being according to an overall life satisfaction metric developed by the Good Childhood Index (The Children鈥檚 Society, 2010). This is lower than the proportion of聽CYP (81.9%.) with 鈥榟igh鈥� well-being in The Good Childhood Report (2022).
- Deaf CYP are most happy with聽family, with 58.6% either happy or very happy with this aspect of their lives. Other aspects showing a high happiness rating in deaf CYP were聽life as a whole听(57.3%),听money and things owned听(53.2%),听time use聽(51.8%), and聽friends听(50.9%).
- Over a quarter (26.6%) of the deaf CYP we surveyed had 鈥榣ow鈥� well-being according to the Good Childhood Index, in contrast to just 11.6% of CYP in The Good Childhood Report (2022).
- Deaf CYP are most dissatisfied with聽choice in life聽(33.2%), followed by聽appearance听(30.5%),听health聽(30.5%), and the聽future听(30.0%).
- Deaf CYP and聽the CYP surveyed in聽The Good Childhood Report (2022) show a noticeable difference in their level of dissatisfaction for聽choice听补苍诲听appearance.
Thank you to all those who helped promote the survey to deaf young people. We hope the findings will be helpful in pressing the case for more and better support for deaf young people.”
