Royal National Institute for Deaf People

The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) is a British charity created to help better the lives of the 9 million deaf and hard of hearing in the United Kingdom.

RNID's head office is in Islington, in Central London (19-23 Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8SL). Its President is Lord Ashley of Stoke. The Chief Executive is Gerald Corbett and the chairman of its trustees is Jackie Ballard. Its Patron is Duke of Edinburgh.

In the financial year 2004/2005 it had a turnover of £45 million and expenditure of £44 million.

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Activities

RNID's activities include:

• campaigning and lobbying, with the help of members, to change laws and government policies
• providing information and raising awareness of deafness, hearing loss and tinnitus
• giving training courses and consultancy on deafness and disability
• offering communication services including sign language interpreters
• training BSL/English interpreters, lipspeakers, speech-to-text reporters and electronic notetakers
• making lasting change in education for deaf children and young people
• supporting deaf people into work with the organisations employment programmes
• providing care services for deaf and hard of hearing people with additional needs
• running RNID Typetalk, a national telephone relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people
• developing equipment and products for deaf and hard of hearing people
• social, medical and technical research.

History

RNID was founded as the National Bureau for Promoting the General Welfare of the deaf in 1911 by Leo Bonn, a deaf merchant banker. It was reorganised as the National Institute for the deaf in 1924. Alongside its role in influencing public policy in favour of people who are hard of hearing in the UK, it also developed a role as a provider of care to deaf and hard of hearing people with additional needs during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

During the 1940s, with the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) to the UK, it successfully campaigned for the provision of free hearing aids through the new welfare state system. The 1950s and 1960s saw its increasing influence marked by Royal recognition: in 1958 the Duke of Edinburgh became the Patron of the Institute; and in 1961 the Queen of the United Kingdom approved the addition of the "Royal" prefix, creating the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID).

The Institute expanded into medical and technological research during the 1960s and 1970s, being a key player in the development of NHS provided behind-the-ear hearing aids. During the 1980s it developed the Telephone Exchange for the Deaf, a pioneering relay service allowing telephone users and deaf "textphone" users to communicate with each other using a third-party operator to relay voice and text communication. This became the service known as Typetalk in 1991, funded by BT but operated on their behalf by RNID to this day.

In 1992 the Institute changed its name to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People but kept the initials RNID.

Controversy

The RNID attracts a lot of criticism within the deaf community, through its lack of involvement in governance of the charity by deaf and hard of hearing people. The organisation currently has 100% hearing Senior Management Team, and the appointed Chair, Gerald Corbett is hearing.

1997: Doug Alker the charity's first Deaf CEO's employment was terminated.

2000: it became the subject of a book, Really Not Interested in the Deaf by Doug Alker.

2002: saw a Deaf Chair Now demonstration by the Secret Seven.

Recent developments

In more recent years, RNID has achieved a very high profile for its work together with the UK government on modernisation of the UK's audiology services available via the NHS, which has seen the introduction of superior digital hearing aids free of charge to the end users.

RNID has also emerged as a major player in technology research and development, in particular through its work in the area of Product Development. The RNID Product Development team won an Innovation Award for their work on a new genre of telephone - the ScreenPhone.

In 2006, RNID won two prestigious awards at the Third Sector Excellence Awards ceremony - in the categories of 'Best Integrated Campaign' and 'Overall Excellence'. Both of these were for its 'Breaking the Sound Barrier' campaign, which aims to reduce the stigma associated with hearing aids and hearing loss, in order to assist the 4 million people in the UK who would benefit from a hearing aid but currently don't.

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