Guiding principles

Informed choice

Parents have the right to make decisions about what is best for their child and family. Providing families with reliable information which is meaningful and accessible, will assist them in making informed decisions about their deaf child and assist their child to achieve their full potential.

Good quality information is the cornerstone of informed choice but does not guarantee understanding. Professionals continue to play a crucial role in supporting parents to understand all the available information and assist families to make those important decisions about raising their deaf child in ways that suit the strengths, values, needs and experience of each family.

Information content

Our aim is to provide evidence based information that can help parents with both the major and day-to-day decisions of raising their deaf child.

We would prefer to use or adapt existing high quality content produced by experts in areas such as audiology, education and mental health. Where existing content is not available, we will research and write our own content. We aim to work in partnership with expert individuals and organisations to bring reliable, evidence-based information to families.

We believe that well-informed parents are able to decide what is right for their children and family, based on their particular circumstances. Where there is evidence for more than one approach to an issue, information will be provided about the different options and their benefits and limitations. Parents will be offered detailed information on how to implement a chosen direction or strategy.

We wish to make the information available on the website accessible for all families, irrespective of their access to a computer and the Internet. You may print single copies of any page of this website for your own personal and non-commercial use. Professionals working with families are encouraged to print appropriate pages for use by families where access to computers or the Internet is problematic. You must not otherwise reproduce any material on this website in any form without permission.

Community languages

There is limited information on the Internet for families from non-English speaking backgrounds. We aim to assist these families by developing a range of materials in community languages to assist them to make informed decisions about raising for their deaf child. This is dependent on funding.

Parent forums

Parent forums are an integral part of Aussie Deaf Kids While parent forums are primarily to offer parent-to-parent support and information, they can highlight the changing information needs of families. Where information is consistently requested by families in the forums which is not available on the website, we will seek to provide the information.

Partners and sponsors

Information about all partners and sponsors will be provided in the “About Us” section of the new website. Information will include a short description of each supporting organisation and a link to their website. All major sponsors will have their logo on the bottom of the home page. Partners and sponsors may not compromise the integrity of the content on the website.

Irrespective of any partnership or sponsorship arrangement:

• Information about all service providers and organisations will appear wherever it is appropriate on the website.
• All service providers and other organisations or facilities can contribute to the “What’s on?” section of the website. This will inform families about upcoming events or other news which is important or interesting for families.
  

Advertising

There will be no advertising material on the website.

Terminology

The website will use the term ‘deaf’ to mean all types of deafness, and all levels of deafness from mild to profound.