About This Course
The Deaf Role Model Guide: From Deaf for Deaf has become a tool for training Deaf
adults as professionals to support and empower hearing and Deaf adults
(professionals, family members, colleagues) to work and collaborate with Deaf people
from the early years of life through adulthood.
The Guide contains adequate personal experience information on the developmental,
emotional, social and language needs of Deaf people. The Guide is intended for Deaf
adults, members of the Deaf community who are to be trained as Deaf Role Models to
support other Deaf adults with their paradigm.
It intends to provide practical knowledge to Deaf people to advance their professional
and personal lives.
The guide will contains two sections which will cover the main topics:
Collaboration with the community.
Learning can be enriched through the full inclusion of community members. Deaf
Role Models from the Deaf community brought their expertise and perspectives from
their lives and experiences to enhance the learning of members of the Deaf World.
It is especially helpful to collaborate and connect with experts from the community
when learning about specific cultural contexts to avoid offending or misrepresenting
Deaf culture. Collaboration among community members enhances relational learning.
Thus, those involved in the training process learn from each other through the sharing
of their experience and ideas and they create the learning - teaching material, together.
Considering Diversity
The training resources reflect sensitivity to diversity and incorporate positive role
representations. The content meets the diverse social and communication needs of
adults, enhancing social participation and inclusion. The Guide gives voice to all
members of the Deaf community.
Features of the Teachers Guide
The guide will contains two sections which will cover the main topics:
- The Theory of Identities: Deaf people as role models
- The stories of Role Models
The guide includes information on topics about the Deaf World and the Hearing World:
- The hearing adults needs and difficulties, the emotional stages they go throw dealing with deafness
- The developmental cognitive, social and linguistic characteristic/skills of deaf people,
- Deaf adults developing communication skills,
- The Deaf Community
- Relationships between the deaf world and the hearing world
- Inclusion and cultural exchange in both worlds
Requirements
No prior knowledge of Deafness, Deaf Role Models and Sign Language is required. Join us and become part of the Sign Links chain.
Course Staff
Evanthia Plahoura
Evanthia Plahoura is a graduate of the Pedagogical Department of Primary Education, and has been working at the Ministry of Education since 2009. Since 2020 she has been working as a seconded employee at the Kaftanzogleio National Stadium in Thessaloniki. She is intensively involved in the activities of the Deaf Community, has been secretary of the Deaf Youth Committee of the Hellenic Federation of the Deaf, a member of the Sports Club for the Deaf and is vice president of the Hellenic Association of Deaf Olympians. She is a Deaf interpreter, and has been collaborating in the program "Universal Design and Development of Accessible Educational Material" as an Interpreter - Translator, since 2019. She has collaborated in the Erasmus + program "Pame Samothraki" as an International Sign Language Interpreter. She is a collaborator in the transnational program Erasmus + "Deaf Adults as Role models for the Hearing World: Links of the Same Chain" "Sign Links". She has been an actress of the Greek Deaf Theater since 2002, and one of its directors since 2009. She is a certified Greek Sign Language teacher, and prepares trainees of GSL interpreters for their professional certification. In all this, her main interest is the education of the Deaf and their familiarity with the Greek written language.
Monitoring and participation
The course is FREE for everyone to attend and with your participation you get access to all course materials (videos, texts, articles, exercises and assignments).
Confirmation of participation and attendance
On successful completion of the program, you will receive a certificate of attendance.
Successful completion means completion of all course requirements of independent
study and your final involvement average must be greater than or equal to 60%.
The independent study requirement is at least one of the following: The participation
in the Internship Workshops, Signing Books and materials for parents, the Final
Conference, the development of the “Became a Deaf Role Model too!” or field work
of your choice that is agreed with the course staff.
