Barney is the star of JDA’s Mitzvah Day

Barney, the hearing dog, was one of the stars of JDA’s Mitzvah Day sessions at Hampstead Town Hall.

The long-eared spaniel belongs to Jean Wells, who started to lose her hearing at the age of eight. Mrs Wells took part in a lip-reading session and spoke about her experiences with Barney.

The JDA team, which included Gabrielle Radnor, who works as an advisor in JDA’s technology and information department, deaf JDA employee Jeremy Freedman and Kay Kaufman, held two sessions during the afternoon.

The first was the “Say That Again” workshop which was aimed at teaching people how to cope with members of their family who may be losing their hearing.

There was also ‘Kids Aloud’ workshop to help raise awareness of deafness among young people.  The interactive workshop gave children aged 8-11 first-hand experience of what it feels like not to be able to hear properly and gave them ideas on how to communicate in the right way – including learning to fingerspell.

Ms Radnor said: “There was a keen interest in what we were doing and we answered lots of questions from people who were eager to get tips. We had lots of very positive feedback during the day and felt it was a really worthwhile exercise.”

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