Hearing Café

Is there a café or coffee shop located near your clinic? Why not arrange weekly meetings where community members can discuss hearing related issues and challenges over a cup of coffee or tea?

You could advertise the weekly meetings online, at your clinic, in the local newspaper, and at the coffee shop itself. The meetings can help start open discussions about hearing loss and the challenges of living with hearing loss on a daily basis.

After moderating an open discussion among participants, you could use each meeting to discuss communication strategies and provide information on various treatment options. You could use the Ida Institute's Group Aural Rehabilitation tool as inspiration for weekly topics and exercises. 

Café Philosophique is a grassroots forum started in 1992 by philosopher Marc Sautet in Paris, France. His idea was to bring together people in a public forum so that they could freely discuss ideas.

The concept has spread and there are now thousands of Café Philosophique events taking place all around the world. 

Discussing hearing loss over a friendly cup of coffee can bring the topic of hearing loss out into the public arena. Instead of meeting behind closed doors, meeting at a café can bring the topic out into the open. People who frequent the coffee shop or see the flyers can get drawn into the conversation.

Coffee shop meetings can also serve as a jumping board to larger, more organized meetings where communication strategies and rehabilitation options are presented.