The National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) provides amazing support to the 50,000 children in the UK who live with hearing loss, and their families.  To celebrate every one of those amazing children and to support the NDCS with the fantastic work that they do, I will be walking 50,000 steps a week for the next year.  This will be a big challenge for me having just had a baby and because I'm very unfit and  haven't had a full night's sleep for nearly 6 months!  I'd love for people to join me for a week or a month doing their own 50,000 step challenge and linking to this fundraising page, so please share this widely and get involved.  Any donations you can offer would be really appreciated, and will help keep my motivation up, especially on these rainy winter days!

So why does the NDCS mean so much to our family?  Our beautiful little boy Lucas was born in July and at 8 weeks old he was diagnosed with severe to profound permanent hearing loss. After our initial shock and numbness, we turned to the NDCS to help us navigate our way through this new world that we had been thrown into.  Since then the NDCS have helped us access British Sign Language lessons and have run webinars on a range of topics that have allowed us to understand Lucas's diagnosis, his needs and his rights more thoroughly.  We've also been able to connect with other parents who are at the same stage in their child's diagnosis, and have attended baby sign and story-time sessions online with their early years team.  

We have a long road ahead of us as Lucas learns to listen with his hearing technology and communicate with the world, but with the help of the NDCS this journey feels achievable rather than daunting, and we now feel really proud and excited to be part of the deaf community.

Thank you for reading our story and thanks in advance for any support you can give.