We were delighted to be approached by Wigan Athletic Football Club to deliver a deaf awareness training session, including basic British Sign Language (BSL), as part of their Academy’s Education programme.

The young players have regular Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) sessions, and they wanted one of their sessions to focus on increasing their awareness of D/deaf culture and how to communicate with a person who is deaf or Hard of Hearing.

The players were taught how to be more confident when communicating with a D/deaf person, and learned how to sign a range of footballing terms, including red card, tackle, referee and goal! They were also taught how to finger-spell the letters of the alphabet so they could spell their name and introduce themselves to a deaf person.

Staff at Walthew House regularly deliver deaf awareness sessions, as well as accredited combined sensory loss training sessions (which also covers visual impairments). If your organisation is interested in finding out more about our training offer, please contact fundingmanager@walthewhouse.org.uk or call 0161 480 2612.

Well done to all of the players for engaging in the short course, and for Wigan Athletic FC for including deaf awareness as part of their commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in their education programme!

The English Football League (EFL) launched their new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy, called Together, at the start of this season. The objectives of the strategy include:

• ensuring the workforce is representative and reflective of the communities EFL Clubs represent.
• improving the diversity of supporters attending EFL matches.
• challenging discrimination and behaviour both in the stands and social media.
• establishing a path for continual EDI developments for Clubs.
• improving the understanding of EDI across the game.

You can find out more about the Together strategy here.