Highland Partnership Project in line for top Care Accolade

A partnership of two Highland deaf projects has been short-listed for a  “care accolade” in a national competition sponsored by the Scottish Social Services Council in association with the Scottish Executive.

The Deaf Communication Project, which offers sign language and deaf awareness training, and Deaf Action, which provides communication support services to deaf people, will find out if they’ve won the Care Accolade Award when they attend a ceremony in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, on Friday 8 June, fronted by ITV’s  presenter Kaye Adams.  

Fiona Palin, Head of Operations (Criminal Justice and Central Services) at The Highland Council said: “120 teams from social care services across Scotland entered the awards and just 13 have reached the finals, so this is already a great commendation of the partnership’s achievements in Highland.  The awards are designed to recognise best practice throughout the social services sector.  We felt the partnership had a strong chance of success after the Deaf Communication Project scooped a Highland Council Quality Award last October.”

The Deaf Communication Project was set up in 1996 by The Highland Council and NHS Highland with funding from the European Social Fund.  It has trained hundreds of people in sign language, deaf awareness and lipreading.  Building on the project’s success, the Council and the NHS commissioned Deaf Action (Edinburgh) to open a Highland Communication Support Service in 2003, providing lifeline communication support to deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people throughout the Highlands. 

Meanwhile, the Council's Education Culture and Sport Service PPP2 Initiative has been highly commended in the ‘best community / user involvement in a project’ category in the Public Private Finance Awards 2007 held at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London.