Engaging with the Deaf Community: Raising awareness of the British Sign Language Translation of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
Although there are an estimated 125,000 Deaf people in the UK who use British Sign Language (BSL), there are no child mental health screening instruments accessible to children whose first or main language is BSL. The Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is commonly used in the assessment of children’s mental health problems and is available in 60 languages. We translated the SDQ into BSL, for deaf young people, deaf parents and deaf teachers. We seek resources to enhance awareness of the availability of the SDQ in BSL among the Deaf community, with the aim of building confidence in its reliability and increasing its use. By doing so, we aim to enhance access to, and increase uptake of, mental health services among Deaf children and adolescents, ultimately leading to better mental health outcomes among this community.
