DEN's History

DEN was established in 1983 as The Adult Education Centre for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Persons, (AEC), by the Concerned Deaf Group as a means of access for Deaf and hearing impaired adults into the Adult and Community Education sector. At that time there was little opportunity for the Deaf people to have their say in how and what they wanted to learn. Deaf students learn and process information primarily by experiential and visual methodologies, rather than by auditory methods, as is the common teaching style in education today. Focus was initially on community style hobby courses. In response to demand and increasingly competitive work environment and changing government direction, AEC grew, with its core business evolving to provide accredited and non-accredited vocational, literacy and lifestyle programs to deaf learners, inform teaching approaches, strategies and resources. To compliment this, it introduced an Auslan interpreting service. In 1996 AEC was renamed to Deaf Education Network (DEN). In line with the need to provide quality education for its students, DEN has gathered momentum and community awareness. Today, it is active in the development of curricula and teaching materials for both accredited and non accredited training programs, innovative delivery strategies, research into deaf education and the assessment of literacy and communication skills of deaf adults. DEN also provides both accredited and non-accredited Auslan language programs for hearing learners, enabling hearing people to work within and provide support to the Deaf Community. DEN is the only Adult Education organisation specifically established to meet these adult learning needs of the Deaf Community in Australia. The organisation maintains an up to date sense of best-practice through networking and joint projects with other major adult education institutions such as TAFE, Community Colleges, Renwick College, and several universities.