Hear Hear Clinics Resonate In Guildford Diocese’s Parishes

Published on: 15 Sep, 2016
Updated on: 21 Sep, 2016

The Diocese of Guildford’s Communities Engagement Team helps churches and their parishioners across Surrey in their work supporting their communities. This, the third in a series of stories, focuses on Tracey Wade and her work as its sensory inclusion advisor.

Hearing aid clinics – under the banner Hear Here – are becoming regular events in a growing number of parishes – with hearing champions equipping volunteers with basic skills which are being used to help parishes engage with their local communities.

The hearing aid clinic at St Andrew’s Church, Goldsworth Park, Woking, is one of 25 which have been set up in churches across Surrey with the help of the Community Engagement Team’s sensory inclusion adviser Tracey Wade.

Volunteers are trained to become hearing champions, increasing deaf awareness and local access to hearing maintenance.

St Andrew’s churchwarden Barry Nay, who helps run the monthly session at the church, said: “A reporter ran a story about the clinic in the Woking News & Mail and we had 27 visitors to our first session in 2014.

“With St Andrew’s being in a prime location, with a very large free car park and easy access, it makes it a popular choice for someone wanting to visit during their lunch hour break. We had several of those, and had to jump the queue to accommodate them.

“With some simple training and resources from Tracey we have been able to meet what is clearly a real need within our community, and we are delighted to be able to help in this way.”

Tracey Wade.

Tracey said: “During 2016 a further 29 volunteer champions – there are now 155 in total – were trained in basic hearing-aid maintenance and the clinics are proving popular with the number of visitors increasing all the time.

“It is exciting to see too how much the volunteers are enjoying helping people in this way too. Improving someone’s ability to hear can make a significant difference to people’s lives and I would like to thank the volunteers for all that they are doing.”

Joan Boxall (seated) visiting the recent Merrow training session generously allowing volunteers to practise their newly acquired skills on her.

Tracey is available to help parishes check their loop systems and has a pool of loop equipment available for parishes to borrow as they explore possible solutions.

For more details on hearing services including lipreading classes email Tracey at tracey.wade@cofeguildford.org.uk or SMS (txt/voice): 07531 268476 or telephone 01483 790327.

Click here for the diocese’s website and the section on sensory inclusion.