Deaf Alerter training site installation
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People is a charity that trains dogs to alert deaf people to important sounds – helping them keep safe and reconnect with life.
The charity’s impact is significant; in 2022-3 alone it trained 178 puppies and matched 156 hearing dogs with humans. During that 12 month timeframe its impact through all of its services helped over 5,000 people with hearing loss.
The charity has two training centres in England; one in Buckinghamshire and the other in East Yorkshire. At these centres the puppies are taught how to become a Hearing Dog.
If someone who is Deaf or hard of hearing is matched with a dog, this is also the place at which they can get to know one another.
The Challenge
Hearing Dogs’ visitors include profoundly deaf guests and guests with hearing loss who are paired with and undergo training with dogs on-site.
The organisation also has a number of staff, including those with hearing loss, who need to be able to move freely and independently around the site’s multiple buildings.
Hearing Dogs was looking for a solution to ensure that everyone – including guests and staff – could be made aware of fire alarms going off during the day-time.
As a working facility with public areas, private training areas and of course, the puppy centre, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People needed a solution that was not only provided safety and compliance, but was also quick and unintrusive to install.
The Solution
The solution provided to Hearing Dogs for Deaf People was the installation of our Deaf Alerter system across both of its training sites. (The system was made available for the Southern site first, and then the Northern Site also ordered it.)
Deaf Alerter is a radio-based emergency fire alarm and messaging system that is configured to send a notification to handheld devices in the event that a fire alarm sounds on-site.
These handheld devices, provided to staff and visitors during the day-time, are known as ‘Alerters’. The notifications can be generated to show where emergencies are taking place on the site and provide instructions on how to evacuate.
Night Cradle add-on
Hearing Dogs also provides accommodation for guests taking part in training sessions.
Hearing Dogs therefore required our ‘Night Cradle’ product for every bedroom in the accommodation buildings at its Buckinghamshire site.
If the fire alarm sounded during the night, then the Night Cradle would flash brightly and an accompanying pillow pad would vibrate strongly, to help wake sleeping visitors.
The Result
Both training sites are now fully covered by our Deaf Alerter system. This means that Deaf or hard of hearing people can enter any building on-site and be confident that in the event of an emergency they will receive notifications via their Alerter.
The Deaf Alerter solution installed and maintained by Alerter Group is used to provide the compliant solution in addition to other emergency alerts at the training centres (such as the trained dogs, who can themselves make people aware of emergencies) – supporting a safe environment for everyone on-site.
