The main aim of this AACT4Children & Deaf Aspirations pilot community focused Online project will be to introduce Zoom, Skype, Face Time, Messenger & WhatsApp to a number of deaf children & young people and their families; and also some associated with speech, language and communication difficulties. We will look at how our project can help to combat mental health issues,enhance interactive communication and learning opportunities including Subtitling & Sign Languages for deaf children & their families; and also link up their community centres/schools/special units.

This partnership project is the ideal solution for video messaging within the home/school/community framework, allowing deaf children & young people, teachers, parents and friends to interact, share ideas and communicate in an enclosed and private environment. Zoom Skype & other digital systems give homes, schools/community centres, the opportunity to fully explore the potential of this real-time, child-safe, collaborative technology. Allowing their children/young people to learn, communicate and share with other children & young people from anywhere in the world in ways that were previously impossible.

It is the intention of AACT4Children & Deaf Aspirations to make it easier for teachers and parents to guide their deaf children & young people through this exciting new world of video communication, while avoiding the many dangers of unregulated public sites. By using Zoom, Skype & other technologies we want to make them as simple as we can for users who will need hardly any technical knowledge to get started. We will provide a secure, collaborative, communication space in which deaf young people can video chat with friends, send and receive video messages, share ideas, import and export videos, whilst the video walls encourage debate and interaction amongst young people, wherever their location.