Any advice - assistive devices for our church?

[Brenda Elliott]

Many years ago the Sertoma club donated equipment for the hard-of-hearing to use at church. Some time ago they become defunct. I have recently asked if the church would revisit procuring similar equipment. The Sertoma club would not donate any money to the church, when the church staff inquired. Now a sound person (hearing, who to my knowledge has little to no understanding or experience w/ hearing loss) has ordered something, but no one can explain to me what it is... The church staff member said - "oh you can just buy a transistor radio & listen through that." They don't have any experience w/ hearing loss either. :-) I'm trying to advocate for my son so he can participate fully in the service. With a moderate hearing loss, I'm hoping we can purchase a FM receiver or loop for him, so it'll transmit right to his aids - like in school. The church member thinks their might be a $50 device we can purchase to use with the system. Forgive me, but I'm frustrated that the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left hand is doing.

My fear is the new system won't be portable, so if we have a family retreat, it'll be difficult for my son to participate. They usually show a video that doesn't have closed-captioning nor sub-titles... At the age of 12, he wants to participate to the best of his ability and as his mom, I realize I haven't really advocated enough for him. Us hearing folks just don't get it right away! :-) It's easier now that he's old enough to tell us what's working for him and what isn't. Forgive me for venting, I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced something like this? What did you do?

I'm considering taking this further to ask the Sertoma club personally, on behalf of our family (w/ two kids with moderate SNHL) to see if that helps. I'm also thinking about asking our diocese to consider a policy that each church offer something for the hearing impaired. I've called around, and even some of the newest churches in town don't offer anything for the hearing impaired.

[Brenda Elliott]

UPDATE: I contacted the Sertoma Club last spring, to no avail. The transistor radio guy persisted until July when he continued to be unsuccessful in even getting his solution to work at all. At last, some good news - our church just purchased an FM system for the church! They have 16 portable units - 8 with t-coil neckloops for hearing aid users and 8 with ear phones for those who are hh but not heaing aid wearers. I had tears of joy when I heard about the purchase. For anyone else in the same boat, I encourage you to be persistent and to explain to as many on church staff as possible - especially your pastor/priest. People just don't realize that hearing aids aren't like glasses - they don't correct hearing perfectly... I've been asked to write something up for our local Hands & Voices folks, so when I have more clarity, I'll share here as well. I'm just so encouraged! Now I need to work on our diocese to get other churches on board!

[Carrie Garcia]

Hi Brenda,
We have experienced similiar difficulties in our church with our 8 year old daughter (they are currently looking into updating the ASL transmitter radio system). From Sertoma directly, we personally purchased a "headphone" cord for approx. $200 that comes with a set of boots that attach to her hearing aids, and it plugs into any device that a set of regular headphones would (ie: IPod/mp3 player, Nintendo DS, portable video player, cd player, and even my cell phone, etc.) and it works well with ASL's - including the ones available at our church. Not to mention it feels a little more hygenic than using the generic headphones/earbuds that everyone else has already worn. We've even plugged it into the headphone jack in the backseat of our car so she could listen to the radio clearer without me having to blast her favorite song when the windows are down! :) Although $200 is expensive, I feel safer knowing the hearing aids are protecting her ears vs. her wearing earphones with no hearing aids. Hope this helps! Carrie

[Lucky Day]

Brenda,
My son is only 4 and we have mostly focused on getting him into a signing environment for church and school. Our church has induction loops built into all their chapels. We have thought about getting a personal loop system like these at Harris Communications.
http://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=46_158
We are hoping to get an FM system through the Hike Fund soon. Then we would be able to use that at church and anywhere we wanted to focus on hearing.
A problem I came across recently is that our church is offering spanish translation to the spanish members of the ward. There is only one broadcast channel, so now they are giving the hard of hearing elderly a spanish broadcast! Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

[Karen Putz]

Hi Brenda,

What about setting up a special collection? I'm sure there have to be elderly people too who want to participate and are feeling left out. One church in Illinois has a volunteer transcriptionist that captions a service each week. There may be transcriptionists out there that need training hours and you can set up remote captioning via a laptop.
Another option is to ask your school if your son can use the FM system on weekends, some schools let students take them home and use them over the weekends.