66 years ago, Edwin Owen was inspired to set up the Shropshire Deaf Children’s Society. Mr Owen had first been drawn to work with deaf children following a chance encounter with a 12 year old deaf girl with no speech which occurred while he was serving with the Army in Italy during WW2. On his return to England Mr Owen trained as an ear, nose and throat surgeon and later moved to work at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The first meeting of the Society took place at Coleham Elementary School, with the support of the Head teacher, Mr Halliday, and Eileen Bell, who taught deaf children at the school. In 1964, the SDCS became affiliated to the National Deaf Children’s Society. Initially the charity was set up to provide support for families of deaf children, including provision of Teachers of the Deaf. Fund raising also helped to provide money for research into congenital hearing loss, which was of particular interest to Edwin Owen.

In 2017, we organised a ball to mark the 65th birthday of SDCS, the charity is still going strong and continues to support hearing impaired children across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin. Today we work very closely with the Sensory Inclusion Service to make sure that the needs of each deaf child are catered for through educational and social events.