Better Hearing in Education for Northern Youth (BHENY) Project Update

Lynne is BHENY’s Project Leader. She has been an Audiologist for 26 years, and is a member of Rotary Club of Guelph.  The goal of the Better Hearing in Education for Northern Youth (BHENY) is to help children and youth with hearing loss, beginning in 13 under serviced communities in the Qikiqtani region of Nunavut.  Bheny aims to address hearing loss at home, at school and in the community by focusing on:

• Enhancing audiology services  We hope to increase access to audiology services, such as by implementing remote hearing aid programming, enhance collaboration with southern audiology services (where many children are currently seen). and provide access to loaner hearing aids for children to use when their own hearing aids need to be sent for repair
• Improving hearing at school with personal FM systems, sound field systems in schools and professional development and support for teachers.  This includes developing a teacher Virtual Resource Centre to provide technical support for hearing technology
• Improving learning at school by using the Virtual Resource Centre for professional development for classroom teachers and Student Support Teachers through webinars, virtual resources, and professional learning communities
• Developing community partnerships to help everyone learn more about hearing loss, and how to help individuals with hearing loss in the community.