Miss-Delectable
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Big Festive Fun Down At East 17 (from East London and West Essex Guardian Series)
DEAF and hearing impaired children started their Christmas celebrations with a craft party.
EaST 17, the Early Support Service for deaf children and their families, was also celebrating a recent award of £1,500 from the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, despite fears over the group's future due to a lack of funding.
Mums and Dads were on hand to help the children play games, make Christmas hats and have their faces painted, and later on Father Christmas gave them a present each.
"They loved it, absolutely loved it," said Susan Cordwell, parent support co-ordinator.
She said the children were able to communicate with Santa via an interpreter.
"Children are returning signs by the time they are one year-old, and they often have a bigger vocabulary through signing than through speech," she added.
The service is housed in the Chapel End Early Years Centre, Brookscroft Road. Children from Redbridge and Waltham Forest are identified as eligible by the Whipps Cross neonatal hearing screening programme.
It combines health and education facilities and support as a means of making the array of different services needed for care of deaf children more accessible.
Thanks to the award, the group can run more family days out and support groups - but members don't expect the funding to extend much beyond next March.
Ms Cordwell says the group has been struggling to find sponsorship since the Department for Education, which created the centre in 2002, pulled its funding earlier in the year.
Audiology staff provide hearing tests, and there is also language therapy and sign language teaching from professional staff, who are funded by the NHS and EduAction.
Ms Cordwell said: "The whole idea is we're in an education-based centre, which is more family friendly than a medical centre."
For more information 8501 9995. www.east17.info
DEAF and hearing impaired children started their Christmas celebrations with a craft party.
EaST 17, the Early Support Service for deaf children and their families, was also celebrating a recent award of £1,500 from the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, despite fears over the group's future due to a lack of funding.
Mums and Dads were on hand to help the children play games, make Christmas hats and have their faces painted, and later on Father Christmas gave them a present each.
"They loved it, absolutely loved it," said Susan Cordwell, parent support co-ordinator.
She said the children were able to communicate with Santa via an interpreter.
"Children are returning signs by the time they are one year-old, and they often have a bigger vocabulary through signing than through speech," she added.
The service is housed in the Chapel End Early Years Centre, Brookscroft Road. Children from Redbridge and Waltham Forest are identified as eligible by the Whipps Cross neonatal hearing screening programme.
It combines health and education facilities and support as a means of making the array of different services needed for care of deaf children more accessible.
Thanks to the award, the group can run more family days out and support groups - but members don't expect the funding to extend much beyond next March.
Ms Cordwell says the group has been struggling to find sponsorship since the Department for Education, which created the centre in 2002, pulled its funding earlier in the year.
Audiology staff provide hearing tests, and there is also language therapy and sign language teaching from professional staff, who are funded by the NHS and EduAction.
Ms Cordwell said: "The whole idea is we're in an education-based centre, which is more family friendly than a medical centre."
For more information 8501 9995. www.east17.info