The British Deaf Association
www.britishdeafassociation.org.uk
The British Deaf association is a registered charity and also is the information site for help, advice, and has links to all resources relating to deafness or people who are hard of hearing, or people who need advice, anyone at all really.
On the web site you will find information about
Sign language
Education
Cochlear implants
Links
Jobs
Regional info
Latest news
Services available
Events calender
At the moment as a special christmas gift you can download the BDA fingerspell. This will teach you how to finger spell in sign language. This is also given as the BDA want to raise deaf awareness.


Another web site which should get mentioned is
www.ndcs.org.uk
National Deaf Children's Society official site.
For children and parents everything you and your child would need to know is covered in the web site.
It tells you all about the NDCS and has lots of different sections with huge amounts of resources.
Childhood deafness
Family services
Regional information
Publications
How can you help
News
Kids club
The kids club alone is a very useful source for information, and for your child to get in touch with children going through similar things, they have a penpal section and an art gallery section, as well as links for children.
For information contact details are
The National Deaf Children's Society
15 Dufferin St
London
EC1Y 8UR
Switchboard number-02074908656
Fax number-02072515020
Info & Helpline-02072500123
Email-fundraising@ndcs.org.uk


BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE(this is a very useful site)
www.britishsignlanguage.com
British sign language com uses animated gifs to show you how to do the basic signs for BSL(british sign language). It is only used as a guide, by no means does it cover the whole of the sign language world. It is however
one of the best that I have seen or used. At the moment there are over 400 words which you can choose to learn.
Using this site is very simple and I think the simplicity of it makes it so easy to use.My 6 year old can follow the pictures without any problems. It's split into sections
List of words-lots to pick from
Groups of words-how to do groups of words
Phrases-learn how to ask a deaf person "what is your name" or "what time is it"
I have been taught an awful lot through this site, they also sell a cd with the signs on, ideal to teach children or work friends with.

These are just a very few examples of some very good web sites relating to deafness. You do not have to know a person to learn sign language, or even learn how to lip-speak, you don't have to be deaf yourself, but you can guarentee that some time, some where, you will need to use it.
The reason for my interest in deafness is because I am deaf, I wasn't born deaf and lost my hearing gradually over the past 6 years. It was nerve deafness and just one of those things, to lose communication is extremely frustrating, but by learning and teaching and educating yourself you CAN make things easier, not all the time of course but most of the time.