Vermont Deaf Resource Celebrates National Deaf Awareness Week

Vermont Deaf Resource Celebrates National Deaf Awareness Week with Job Openings and Expansion Plans

  Key Points:

 ·  Vermont Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is currently expanding from 190 to 215 staff positions

·  September 21-27, 2009 is National Deaf Awareness Week

·  More than 23,000 Vermonters are deaf or hard of hearing

·  Brattleboro-campus construction projects started this month will house an expanded national pilot program for deaf autistic students and a deaf-friendly public daycare facility  

Brattleboro – With students back on campus, three new expansion and renovation projects underway, and almost a dozen job openings listed on their website, Vermont Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (VCDHH) encourages Vermonters to think during National Deaf Awareness Week about the contributions deaf residents bring to Vermont’s economy and communities. 

“Deaf and hard-of-hearing Vermonters are everywhere. They work in high tech industries, government, education, manufacturing, and retail businesses from restaurants to grocery stores.  They are entrepreneurs, teachers, business leaders, daycare providers, and students,” says Bert Carter, president of VCDHH.  “There is a very active and vibrant deaf community here in Vermont, and that community in turn contributes to the economy and creates a lot of stable jobs for Vermonters.” 

VCDHH is Vermont’s primary service provider for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, featuring more than a dozen statewide school support and adult services and a residential K-12 school (the historic Austine School) in Brattleboro. A multifaceted expansion currently underway will add a deaf-friendly daycare (expected to open to the whole Brattleboro community in 2010) and expand the nation’s leading deaf-autistic residential educational facility which is housed on the Austine campus. 

“It’s an exciting time to be creating jobs,”  Carter says, “and our staff finds helping people with hearing loss succeed in a hearing society very rewarding.”  

An estimated 24,000 deaf and hard of hearing people live in Vermont, and VCDHH currently employs about 190 people statewide with the largest concentration at VCDHH’s two residential schools in Brattleboro.  Carter expects to add 25 more positions during the next two years as VCDHH magnet schools attract more out-of-state students. 

 “Our staff is a diverse mix of people with all different hearing abilities,” Carter says. “We have a large deaf population giving back by working here. Also, about 15% of our teachers, administrators and support staff themselves graduated from the Austine School, which really speaks well of Brattleboro’s welcoming nature as well as the education they’ve received here. ”

 VCDHH job openings are posted at www.vcdhh.org, and current listings include a social worker, occupational therapist, physical therapist and residential staff.  American Sign Language classes are offered by VCDHH throughout Vermont for new employees as well as the public.

Vermont Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is a chartered nonprofit providing educational and support services for people with hearing loss and their communities throughout Vermont and the Connecticut River Valley.  Based in Brattleboro, VCDHH is best known for its 105-year-old residential Austine School for the Deaf and American Sign Language classes, but the center also offers a wide range of diagnostic, technical assistance, education and advocacy around hearing and communication issues. For more information or to request VCDHH services, call 802 258-9500 (v/tty) or write info@vcdhh.org.

For more information, contact VCDHH at 802-259-9500 v/tty or 866-947-7409 vp.