Who we are
Glue Ear Together was founded as a small charity in 2023 by Katy Mitchell, Education Advisor for the Ewing Foundation and Jennifer Royds, parent of a beautiful daughter who has glue ear. Following on from our work on the guideline commitee for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), we identified the need for a condition-specific organisation to provide clear, concise information about glue ear to parents and early years practitioners.
Katy is an Education Advisor for the Ewing Foundation, a national charity which promotes the inclusion and achievement of deaf children through speaking and listening. Katy trained to be a Teacher of the Deaf on the four-year course at the University of Manchester, in the highly regarded department of education of the deaf and audiology. She has 35-years experience in the field, is a qualified Educational Audiologist and a Teaching Practice Supervisor for Mary Hare. Katy managed a Resource Base for deaf children before working in a peripatetic role. She has specialised in supporting deaf children from the point of identification and has a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, ‘Deaf Education Birth to Two Years’. Katy works part time in a local authority supporting deaf children at home and in early years settings and regularly provides information and advice to families and nurseries about glue ear.
Katy was asked by the B.A.T.O.D. (British Association of Teachers of the Deaf) Foundation to write a Deaf Education M.E.S.H. (Mapping Educational Specialist Know How) on glue ear. Following the publication of this guide, Katy was asked by BATOD to be the Teacher of the Deaf representative on the NICE guideline committee for the development of new guidelines for otitis media with effusion in under 12’s. Given the prevalence of glue ear in the early years, Katy has identified the need for early years practitioners to receive information about hearing loss as part of their initial training. She is working to support leading course providers with this information and is author of the Ewing Foundation booklet ‘Hearing to Achieve and Succeed’.
Jen’s 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with glue ear in both ears at 15 months old, which causes a fluctuating mild- to moderate hearing loss. Over the past several years of supporting her daughter she has gained a wealth of experience - from trying to put in place the best conditions for hearing at home, preschool, school, and in social settings, to understanding hearing testing and audiology services, utilising bone conduction hearing devices and postaural hearing aids (her daughter has used both!), detection and reporting of fluctuating hearing loss (during the pandemic lockdown she put together a home McCormick toy test to simulate formal audiology testing and try and identify when her daughter’s hearing might be deteriorating), and knowledge of acoustic improvements for buildings.
Very early on Jen realised the importance of close communication with both her daughter’s audiologists and Teachers of the Deaf, who have continued to provide her with with education in understanding the workings and impacts of glue ear and its associated hearing loss. Jen sat as a lay member on the NICE guideline committee for development of new guidelines for otitis media with effusion (glue ear) in under 12s, published August 2023. Jen’s daughter also has Down Syndrome and Jen is a trustee for Bristol Down Syndrome Trust.