Cochlear Implanted Children's Support
From snowheads
Type: Charity (supporting various activities including ski-ing)
Contact: StanBowles (aka Dominic Byrne) and website: www.cicsgroup.org.uk
Purpose
Each year I organise a holiday for deaf children who use cochlear implants on behalf of a charity called CICS (Cochlear Implanted Children's Support) - www.cicsgroup.org.uk. These are children with the most profound level of deafness who can get no benefit from even the most powerful hearing aids and so use cochlear implants. I love skiing and rep for the Ski Club of GB although I have had to put that on the back burner now that I have a young daughter. Our daughter was born deaf and uses a cochlear implant.
Meeting other families with cochlear-implanted children made me realise how important it was to provide opportunities for these children to access activities that they might not usually access and also to give parents the opportunity to meet other families facing the same challenges. I decided a skiing holiday was an ideal way of achieiving this. So, on purely voluntary basis, I now combine two passions by organising an annual holiday for families in association with the the CICS charity. CICS is run on a completely voluntary basis and is a network of families with children who have cochlear implants. Last year we organised these holidays for the first time and they were a huge success.
Nearly all the children are beginners or near-beginners and one of our biggest challenge is making the cost of ski school affordable for families who are already facing additional costs as a result of their child's disability. While the children are no different to teach than other children, their deafness means that they need to be taught in smaller groups. The children use their cochlear implant to enable them to hear and, so, listening and speaking is their primary form of communication. But, to be able to listen and speak, they need to be close to the person they are communicating with. Some of the children also have other special needs. So we need to organise ski school in small groups to help the cochlear-implanted children and to avoid any communication difficulties. In practice, this means a ratio of one instructor to every 3/4 children which, in effect, doubles the cost. The ski schools give us support by reducing the price as much as possible but the reality is that each year we still have to fundraise a significant amount to bring the cost down to a level that the families would pay if their child was not deaf and could go to normal group ski school. Any help that other Snowheads can give would be greatly appreciated. Last year 24 children with cochlear implants went on the holidays. In 2006, there will be 26 children. It costs us about £60 per child to get the ski school price down to an affordable level.
People can give donations by sending cheques, made payable to CICS, to me or one of the CICS organisers. Even better, if people GiftAid it then we can boost the donation by 28%. If people PM me (StanBowles) then I can send them a CICS GiftAid donation form.
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