The impact of universal newborn hearing screening: education perceiving the role of social services

This article presents results from qualitative interviews with 27 education services working as the lead agency with deaf children and families in sites where the universal newborn hearing screening programme (NHSP) is being piloted in England. This segment of data focuses specifically on how the social work role and practice is perceived by teachers of the deaf. It demonstrates the difficulties encountered in multi-agency working in the absence of specialist deaf child social workers: the perceived impact of deaf child referrals not satisfactorily fitting within any consistent organizational structure within social services; the poor liaison between education and social services over newly identified deaf children; the effects of parental information based on a limited understanding of the social work role and duties. The findings are set within current government initiatives to improve multi-agency working with disabled children and deaf children under three.