2017 CHHA Conference Recap
CHHA National
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The 2017 CHHA Conference "Hear by the Sea" that was held in the beautiful Sidney, British Columbia was a great success! We had over 175 delegates in attendance over the course of the conference and many new faces!
We kicked off the event with our Exhibit Fair that featured 20 Exhibitors specializing in Hearing Loops, Assistive Listening Devices, CART, Cochlear Implants, Hearing Aids, Advocacy and much more!
New this year was the "Spotlight on Invisible Disabilities" Panel Discussion Breakfast and Live Webcast. There was also a Young Adult Network Retreat that had over 20 participants from across Canada.
We had a great Keynote Speaker, Dr. Marshall Chasin (Hearing Loss: Getting the music back), Plenary Speakers- Dr. Douglas Beck (Issues in Tinnitus for Consumers) and Dr. Kathy Pichora-Fuller & Dr. Paul Mick (News for CHHA members about the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging).
There were exciting workshops by Jo-Ann Bentley (Be Prepared and Sleep Easier with Fire Safety Technology: Learn about the latest technology available for fire safety in your home), Dean Olson & Michael Currie (Succeeding in the workplace), Tim Archer & Mike Shaw (Recent Developments in Assistive Listening), Anne Griffin & Myrtle Barrett (CHHA and Audiologists: Can we increase effectiveness by working together?), Richard McKinley (Hearing Access: A review of hearing loops, FM/IR systems technology), Dr. Jo(anne) DeLuzio & Elissa Robb (Beyond the sound booth: exploring frontiers in audiology). Saturday afternoon we had our Annual General Meeting and Town Hall.
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Saturday night brought us all together in celebration of our 35th Anniversary at our Awards Banquet Dinner. There was a special Post-Banquet performance of "I'm Hearing as Hard as I Can!", A Show about Living with Hearing Loss by Gael Hannan with musical guest, Patrick Godfrey, in the Charlie White Theatre.
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There were many accessibility features in place. The ENTIRE venue was looped by our looping sponsors Hearing Loops Canada and Contacta including a counter loop at Registration, all meeting spaces, Charlie White Theatre and the Bodine Family Hall. All meeting rooms had CART Captioning provided by Accurate Realtime Inc.
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Special thanks to our volunteers and conference committee: Gael Hannan, Leslee Scott and Curtis Les, Delegates, Sponsors and Exhibitors.
Delegates, a post-conference survey was delivered to your inboxes on Friday, June 16. Please complete by Sunday, June 25. Please give us your honest feedback about the conference!
If you have any photos of the conference or any of the events that took place at the conference, please email them to conference@chha.ca
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Spotlight on Invisible Disabilities Panel Discussion Webcast LIVE from 2017 CHHA Conference
CHHA National
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Missed our Spotlight on Invisible Disabilities discussion? Watch it on demand - bit.ly/Spotlight0526.Thanks goes to our partners: The Royal Canadian Legion, CMHA, NEADS and CCRW.
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CHHA National is Hiring!
CHHA National
CHHA National is looking to fill 2 positions:
Executive Director (Closing Date: July 14)
Director of Resource Development (Closing date: June 30)
CHHA is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all equity-seeking groups for consideration.
Special consideration for this position will be given to CHHA members.
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2017 CHHA National Awards Winners
CHHA National
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The 2017 CHHA National Awards were presented at the 2017 CHHA National Conference.
Winners:
* The Colin Cantlie Community Development and Community Relations Award: Society for Manitobans With Disabilities Self-help Clearinghouse (Presented to Gladys Nielsen of CHHA Manitoba)
* Marilyn Dahl Award of Merit: Marilyn Kingdon of CHHA Edmonton
* The Winnifred C. Cory Award of Merit: Susan Brown (Presented to daughter, Jennifer Brown of CHHA-NL)
* The Bette Moulton Award: Canadian Hard of Hearing Association – Newfoundland & Labrador Chapter
* The Lynn Wheadon Education Award: (Jointly) Bowen Tang and Joy Gong
* Charles Laszlo Award of Technical Excellence: (Jointly) Lee Ramsdell and CHHA Edmonton Branch
* Young Adult Award of Excellence: Rosalind Ho
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Mountain Ear Newsletter - June 2017
CHHA North Shore Branch
Read Mountain Ear - CHHA North Shore Branch Newsletter to see what they have been up to!
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CHHA Newsletter Submissions
Want to be featured in I Listen?
Submit your Chapter/Branch Newsletter to chhanational@chha.ca
We want to hear from you!
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Fun Family Picnic
CHHA BC Parents' Branch
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Fun Family Picnic
Saturday, June 17, 2017
11:00 AM-3:00 PM
Provincial Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services
4334 Victory Street
Burnaby, B.C.
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The 8th annual Meeting of the C.I. recipients of the Ontario South West Regional Cochlear Implant Club
CHHA Hamilton Branch
Sunday, June 25th, 2 - 5 pm
Brant Hills Community Centre (2255 Brant S. – Burlington L7P 5C8)
Speakers:
• David Shipp, MA, FAAA, Reg. CASLPO, Sunnybrook Hospital CI update
• Dr. Andrew Dimitrijevic, Bsc., Hon, MSc, PhD
“Brain Function in Cochlear Implant Users”
With question & answer period
To register: chhahamilton2@gmail.com or (905) 659-7347
$5 for non-members, Note Taking available, Free parking, Refreshments
All are welcome!
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Applications are now open for CHHA-NL’s Summer Camp 2017
CHHA-NL
Summer is “Hear” Family Camp
This year, join in the excitement of a brand new camp theme, Time To Experiment as campers explore science, make new friends and reconnect for another year of camping fun! Learn more about Summer Camp here.
When: July 7th—9th, 2017
Who: Families of Hard of Hearing Children (Ages 5 – 13)
Where: MacPherson College, Memorial University Campus (St. John’s, NL)
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CHHA Event Submissions
Want to be featured in I Listen?
Submit your Chapter/Branch Event to chhanational@chha.ca
We want to hear from you!
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Text with 911 now available in Fraser Valley Regional District
Abby News
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Stephanie Bryant with the BC Chapter of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association conducts a test call of the Text with 911 for deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired residents.
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Getting emergency services in the Fraser Valley just became a lot easier for those who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired (DHHSI).
The Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD), in partnership with E-Comm and the BC Chapter of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA-BC) launched a new Text with 911 service in observance of National Access Awareness Week and Speech and Hearing Awareness Month.
“The BC Provincial Chapter of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association congratulates the FVRD on enhancing the 911 service to include Text with 911 for people who are hard of hearing, deaf or speech impaired,” said Dr. Marilyn O. Dahl, President of the CHHA-BC. “This will have a powerful and potentially life-saving impact on the safety of the DHHSI community within the FVRD.
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The Best Place to Meet HoHs (People with Hearing Loss)
Hearing Health Matters
I’m hungover. And not from wine – although I did have a glass or two – but from a fabulous overload of people and information. Several days of chat, discussion and discoveries about my hearing loss issues have left my tired but content.
It’s the best hangover I’ve ever had.
The 35th anniversary conference of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA) just wrapped up in my town of Sidney, British Columbia. Almost 200 people, the majority of them with hearing loss, came from across Canada, leaving behind bad weather, like snow in Newfoundland & Labrador, rain in Toronto and high winds in Edmonton. Luckily, Vancouver Island which is often misty and drizzly, had burst into a week of bright warmth, making the outdoor café and boardwalk views of the ocean, mountains, and the occasional whale even more spectacular.
Inside the conference venue, the world of hearing loss was in full swing. Hard of hearing people were mingling and learning how to live better with their hearing challenges – their deafness, their tinnitus, their technology. We used everything that was available to us – hearing aids, cochlear implants, telecoils and loops, Bluetooth, real time captioning, and the non-technical device of speechreading.
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Hard of hearing and ways to improve your life because of it
My Yellowknife Now
To be without one of the 5 physical senses would be terrifying. My heart goes out to those who have to experience this.
If you possess all 5, like myself, try imagining a would where you can’t either feel, smell, see, speak, or hear.
It’s hard, isn’t it?
I work in radio, so out of all the senses, my hearing seems the most important. What’s sad is BECAUSE I work in radio, I’ll likely lose my hearing faster than I typically should because I wear headphones for a large portion of my day.
I had Bill Adkins in the studio with me. He’s the President of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association’s Yellowknife Branch. He’s hard of hearing. What a twist.
The thing with Bill is that he’s lost about 85% of his hearing. He told me a story where the fire alarm in his building was going off, for testing, and he decided to take out his hearing aids to see if he could hear it. “They run that alarm for about 5 to 10 minutes. I thought, ‘well this would be interesting.’ So, I took my hearing aids out. When I did that, I couldn’t even hear the alarms anymore.” Wow.
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Open Captioned Performance of Romeo and Juliet – July 22
Stratford Festival
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Please join us as we pilot a new program to make our theatres more accessible with open captioning. There will be a screen at the front of the stage, upon which the dialogue and sound effects of the play will be displayed as text.
These captions will be synchronized with the dialogue on stage, matching the pace of the actors’ speech. Designated seating has been reserved for best viewing of the stage and the screen.
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Hearing Loss, One Of The Many Invisible Disabilities
Media Planet
Education and Advocacy The Canadian Hard of Hearing Association’s president tells us why Canadians need to know about this invisible disability.
Mediaplanet: What defines personal hearing health and why is it important for Canadians to educate themselves on the topic?
Lorin MacDonald: A person with an invisible disability is a person who has a disability that is not immediately apparent, showing no outward signs of their disability. For instance, some people with hearing loss may not appear to have a disability given the absence of visible aids such as a service dog or a wheelchair, but may still require a level of accommodation to navigate normal activities of daily living.
In many ways, our health overall and the quality of our social connections are linked; hearing loss can have an impact on the ease and quality of those connections. For many people who live with hearing loss, this changes the way communication with family, friends, and everyone we interact with is done. If a person has not found ways to adapt communication to be effective and foster healthy relationships, it is easy to feel isolated by that hearing loss. Everyday misunderstandings can start to add up — feelings of embarrassment, frustration, or sadness can make someone with a hearing loss want to step back from socializing and activities once enjoyed, especially in cases of hearing loss acquired later in life. It is so important to maintain our social connections as part of our quality of life and emotional health. This is not possible if the realities of how an invisible disability like hearing loss creates barriers in communication fails to be recognized, unlike barriers that are more easily removed such as glasses to help us see or ramps to foster physical access. When society is cognizant of the hearing and communication needs of people with hearing loss, the benefits of that effort creates a win-win situation.
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Researchers listen to zebrafish to understand human hearing loss
Medical Xpress
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Can a fish with a malformed jaw tell us something about hearing loss in mice and humans? The answer is yes, according to a new publication in Scientific Reports.
In one of the fascinating twists of evolution, the structures supporting the jaws of ancestral fish gave rise to three tiny bones in the mammalian middle ear: the malleus, incus, and the stapes, which transmit sound vibrations. Therefore, if a genetic change causes a jaw malformation in a fish, an equivalent genetic change could trigger hearing defects in mice and humans.
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There’s more to hearing loss than just 'hearing'
Canadian Hearing Society (CHS)
Taking care of our overall health is top of mind these days. Canadians take considerable time out of their daily lives to go to the doctor and dentist, get their eyes tested and keep fit. But many people are missing one important element of overall health management…their hearing. Taking care of your hearing has many benefits to your overall health, yet many people neglect to get their hearing tested regularly.
The consequences of undiagnosed and unmanaged hearing loss are significant across the age spectrum. There is an emerging body of evidence associating hearing loss with serious health conditions.
- Heart disease: The negative influence of impaired cardiovascular health can affect your hearing.
- Diabetes: Hearing loss is about twice as common in adults with diabetes.
- Cognitive function, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease: Studies show that older people with hearing loss are at increased risk to develop dementia, and that hearing loss is associated with a faster rate of cognitive decline.
- Depression and anxiety: Hearing loss can lead to isolation and other emotional conditions that can affect both quality of life and mental health.
- Chronic kidney disease: Research has shown that people with moderate chronic kidney disease have a higher prevalence of hearing loss.
In addition, hearing loss can cause difficulties within families and relationships due to stress, anger, and fatigue from miscommunications. For youth, hearing loss can impact education, learning, and social development. A regular hearing exam can help you identify and manage your hearing health, and the health conditions associated with hearing loss.
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Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) 2017 Convention
June 22-25, 2017
Salt Lake City, Utah
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