Bernie Cuninghame

I am an operational police officer and i'm always looking to increase my skillset. I have always said that I would like to learn BSL and a couple of recent experiences at work have given me the impetus to start my BSL journey. Communication is a massive part of my job and on one particular occasion, the dynamics of a situation kept deteriorating mostly due to the frustrations of the deaf individual due to the communication barrier. I feel that learning BSL will better equip me in dealing with such like scenarios again should it happen again.

Hi everyone, my name is Bernie and I am new to BSL. It is something that I have wanted to learn for so long but there just always seemed to be something getting in the way of me applying myself. I am an operational police officer and have had recent experiences of dealing with deaf individuals whereby communication was difficult. Being able to communicate with BSL would certainly have helped in de-escalating the situation that i found myself in and I can completely understand the frustration of the people I was dealing with due to the barriers we had. I look forward to continue my learning and hope that I can put my new skills to good use.