Support group VConnect launches mainstream guide for kids with hearing loss

VConnect Foundation, the Mumbai-based support group for parents of children with a hearing impairment has launched its mainstream guide. The guide aims to help parents, caregivers and professionals working to mainstream children with hearing loss.

Over one lakh children are born with a hearing impairment every year in India. Cochlear implants offers an effective remedy to those with profound sensorineural deafness. Not many children undergo the procedure and even those who do don’t get the full benefit as this is not followed up with regular therapy sessions and rehabilitation programmes.

To help address this challenge, VConnect Foundation, a prominent Mumbai-based support group for parents of children with hearing impairments, has launched a mainstream guide. The guide was formally launched in Mumbai on Sunday by renowned ENT surgeon Dr Milind V Kirtane and Dr Suni Mathew, Director, Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for Speech and Hearing Disabilities (Divyangjan).

A concise yet comprehensive mainstream guide has been a long standing requirement from our parent members who have chosen the listening and spoken language approach for their children. The guide will be extremely useful for parents, caregivers, professionals and educators as they all work together for mainstreaming children with hearing loss. – Vahishtai J Daboo, Co-founder & Trustee, VConnect Foundation

Workshops to create awareness about mainstream guide

Experts in the fields of education and inclusion also shared their views in two interactions that followed the launch of the mainstream guide for children with hearing loss. “We want to reach out to parents, centres and educational institutions with our mainstream guide and have planned a series of workshops and interventions over the course of the next one year”, said Fatema Jagmaag, also a co-founding trustee of VConnect Foundation.

VConnect Foundation offers a supportive network for families of children committed to using Listening and Spoken Language to communicate. This is a charitable organisation founded in 2007 by two parents of children with hearing loss, Vahishtai J Daboo and Fatema Jagmaag.

“We have been working with families for last 13 years on various aspects”, says Ms Daboo. “Many professionals think cochlear implants are the last word and that children can be mainstreamed after that. But there’s a whole journey that follows”.

VConnect empowers families across India & outside

VConnect aims to mainstream children with hearing loss by providing hope and empowerment to their parents and primary caregivers. It also enables the creation of an ecosystem that fosters a culture of inclusiveness. The organisation reaches out to over 1,300 parents across India as well as Kenya, Sri Lanka and the Middle East.

VConnect is also collaborating with the Josh Foundation for the Coalition of Global Hearing Health to be held in Mumbai in October 2020. A not for profit organisation, Josh Foundation is focusing on children with hearing loss and also on creating awareness about mainstreaming children.