Siobhan Rennie might never have learned basic British Sign Language if it hadn’t been for the pandemic. This #Deaf Awareness Week 2021, where the theme is ‘Coming through it together’, she shares how being redeployed from our Groups Service to a different service broadened her skillset.

I’m one of the supervisors who work in Groups Service at Touchbase Glasgow. I’ve been working there for four and a half years.

Back in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, I was redeployed to housing support. I was seconded to support Sandy, who is deaf and who uses British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate. I was nervous at the start and slightly worried about communicating with Sandy as I had only used Makaton (another form of communication) in the past.

Thankfully, when I joined the team that were already in place they patiently taught me the most common words/phrases that Sandy liked to use.

As well as having a great team to support me with certain words I was unsure of, Sandy also had a BSL book which he shared with me and encouraged me to study. He’d find it funny if I signed something completely different from what I was trying to say which, at the start, was often! The interaction it brought was incredible.

I am very grateful I had this opportunity even though it was during a pandemic! I found a new way to communicate with someone, which is amazing. Now that I’m back at my usual job in the Group Service I can take what I’ve learned from Sandy and everyone there and pass that on to my fellow colleagues.