by Carrie Jackiewicz, Special Services Coordinator
The vision of Child’s Voice is to be recognized as a global leader in listening and spoken language education and resources for children with hearing loss and their families. One of the ways we are a resource for our children’s families is through Parent Education. In the past few years, we have created an online resource site for our parents. It has Google Slides presentations on a variety of topics including self-advocacy, sports, remote microphones, and the Mainstream. This resource is available to parents when they are looking for more information or support. We have also created a site for our alumni and their families, which covers topics such as transitions to middle school and high school, preparing for college, and IEPs and 504s. If you are interested in seeing our resources, they can be found here.
Another way we support our families is through parent education panels, where panelists share their experiences with others. We have held many different panels in the past 20 plus years, including parents of students in all stages of school, panels of alumni in middle school and high school, and most recently, alumni in the workforce.
In my years as Mainstream Coordinator and now Special Services Coordinator, panels have always been my favorite event to plan and host. I learn something new every time we have a panel. Every parent has their own story of diagnosis and path of choosing the education that was right for their child. By sharing their experiences, parents can give invaluable information to other parents about what to expect and how to handle issues when they arise.
We will be hosting a virtual parent panel in March, and I am really looking forward to hearing the panelists share what they have learned from their children’s transitions to their neighborhood schools. Each of the panelists’ children experienced virtual learning during COVID and I am sure they will have some interesting things to say about how that went for their children. These parents live in different districts that have different resources and related services; one of the families chose to move to a different district in order to have better services for their child. All of the parents on the panel are amazing advocates for their children and I know they will have excellent information to share with our current families.
If you are interested in attending the panel, please contact me at cjackiewicz@childsvoice.org to register and receive the link for the panel. I hope you can join us!
