People who could usefully complete the questionnaire are managers, practitioners/workers, service users and carers from the fields of, or connected to:

- Specialist mental health and Deafness services and organisations

- Deaf services and organisations

- Mental health services and organisations

Please complete as much of the questionnaire as possible (fully if possible!). Some sections only require a tick, or for you to circle a response, or to write one or two words. Some sections ask you to write a list of thoughts or suggestions, or to write a few sentences.

If you are someone who could potentially attend the Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness in the future, whether as a practitioner/worker, user, or carer then please give responses that reflect your own thought, ideas and experiences. If on the other hand, you are in a position whereby you are more likely to send members of your workforce to attend the Certificate rather than attend it yourself please complete the questionnaire from that particular perspective (i.e. thinking about the training needs of your workforce).

The collated information from the questionnaires will be used to inform ideas about:

- the content of the Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness

- the values that should underpin the Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness

- issues about addressing and ensuring inclusion and accessibility for the Certificate training course

The questionnaire can be downloaded  as a pdf file from this webpage. Please print off the questionnaire, complete it and then post it to:

Guy Wishart

Project Manager and Assistant Director of Community Mental Health Programmes

Institute of Applied Social Studies

University of Birmingham

Edgbaston

Birmingham

B15 2TT

Please download and  try to post completed questionnaires to Guy Wishart by no later than Monday 2nd June 2008.

An information sheet about the project to create the Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness is provided here along with:

A list of the Project Steering Group members, and their contact details, can be found here:

If you have any questions about the Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness Project please feel free to contact Guy Wishart on 0121 414 7910, or by using G.D.Wishart.1@bham.ac.uk

A one day Consultation Event to help inform the development of an accredited Certificate in Mental Health & Deafness training course was held at the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (CEIMH), University of Birmingham, on 28th March 2008. The event was attended by managers, practitioners, service users and carers from the fields of:

- Specialist mental health and Deafness services and organisations

- Deaf services and organisations

- Mental health services and organisations

all of whom have an interest in the development of an accredited Mental Health & Deafness training course. The event included 6 presentations which can be downloaded as powerpoint files should you wish to see what was said and used to stimulate group discussions at the event. The discussions held at the event were used to help design and adapt the questionnaire that we hope you will consider completing to help us create a training course that will meet the training needs that exist for people working with Deaf service users with mental health problems and their carers.

The 6 presentations were as follows:

1) Background to the Project and Purpose of the Day – Guy Wishart (Project Manager, Assistant Director of Mental Health Programmes, University of Birmingham)

2) Policy and Practice Context for Mental Health and Deafness – What helps/hinders Meeting the Needs of Deaf People with Mental Health Problems – Christine McPherson, Denmark House, Birmingham

3) Users Experiences of Services – Patrick Stratton

4) Deaf Professionals Experiences of Accessing Training – Pauline Latchem

5) Distant Learning Materials – Tarsem Singh Cooner, Assistant Director of CEIMH, University of Birmingham

6) Training Implications – Chris Leek, Head of Service Development, SIGN