Two of Scotland’s oldest deafness charities, Deaf Action and Tayside Deaf Association, have merged to create the largest deaf organisation in the country.
Deaf Action (Tayside) will continue to deliver established services for deaf people in Edinburgh and the Lothians including community support, social care, development and training and the Sound Sense Befriending Project. Deaf people in Tayside will also benefit from the introduction of new services to the area including a specialist equipment room, multimedia translation, online communication support and more community activities.
Tayside Deaf Association has been providing services to deaf, deafblind and hard-of-hearing people throughout Tayside since 1893 and had income of £489,000 in its last accounts. The region has around 62,000 people who are affected by some form of hearing loss.
Deaf Action had income of nearly £2m. Between them the two charities have nearly 300 years experience helping deaf people in Scotland.
Law firm Morton Fraser acted for Deaf Action on the merger, which formally took effect at the end of March. At the same time as the merger Deaf Action also converted from being a friendly society to a company limited by guarantee and Morton Fraser also oversaw that relatively unusual process.
Disability charities merge in Dorset
Two Dorset disability charities have also merged. Coping with Chaos, which provides short breaks and other services to around 300 families with disabled children in the area, has joined forces with Diverse Abilities Plus.
Diverse Abilities Plus operates six different services in Bournemouth, that offer support, assistance and education to disabled adults and children and their families. It has turnover of around £4.4m and employs 250-odd staff.
Diverse Abilities Plus had already been providing IT, accounting and administrative support to Coping with Chaos for a while and a full merger became the next obvious step. Coping with Chaos schemes such as Play Opportunities, Face2Face Befriending and Awesome Nights and Days, will continue.
Mark Powell, CEO of Diverse Abilities Plus, said: “Coping with Chaos has been operating for 14 years and has a strong family focus. We intend to build on that focus and to encourage that Coping with Chaos will continue to be locally run from West Moors with a great deal of autonomy.”
Coping with Chaos had income of £166,000 in its last set of accounts as an independent charity.
