Communication Barriers
Romy Spitz, Ph.D
Intended Audience: Department of Health and Human Services employees, foster and adoptive parents and the staff of social service agencies providing services to clients of the Department
Credit: 0.3 CEU's
Doing the Work of DHHS: Deafness, Hearing Loss & Communication Barriers
Not your old fashioned Deaf 101 training! This 2.5 hour training discusses communication barriers of various kinds that impact your ability to do the work of DHHS, including language barriers (Deaf & LEP), hearing barriers (late-deafened, hard-of-hearing, “aging” ears and auditory processing) and cognitive and speech barriers. The emphasis is on ways to resolve the barrier using various resources including low technology and high technology solutions. We don’t focus on the barrier; we focus on the solution so that you can do your job in a manner that is practical, effective, and respectful.
Objectives: The participant will be able to:
- Identify four communication barriers that impact service delivery for their particular service population.
- State how different communication barriers impact service delivery as a means solution-oriented processes rather than problem-identification processes in order to allow flexible solutions to be identified.
- The participant will be able to identify relevant resources for reducing different communication barriers and describe how they might use them in their particular work situation, both in a planned situation and “on the fly”.
- The participant will work with others to list elements of a tool kit for communication that is a) relevant to the populations they serve, b) takes advantage of any existing supports that are in place, and c) practical given the resources available to that work unit, as well as a “wish list” for any resources that might be purchased or become available.
