2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
Award Winners 2024
Michaela Hamaker
Michaela is an articulate and passionate parent leader in Texas, and her efforts have shaped services for families in our EHDI system. Her stellar reputation, built over a decade, has been leveraged to earn other parent leaders a "place at the table." Michaela is relentless in her messages of early identification, informed decision-making, and unbiased support. In her seven years as the coordinator of the Texas Hands & Voices Guide by Your Side Program Michaela developed outreach initiatives to utilize social media, target underserved regions, and develop relationships with audiologists and early intervention programs. She recruited and developed Parent Guides that reflect diversity including Spanish speakers, Deaf/Hard of Hearing adults, and parents of children who are DeafPlus. Her efforts have resulted in our state’ tradition of PAUSE (Parents, Advocating, Understanding and Supporting Each Other) Retreats that introduce newly identified families to training and care, with the format and approach adapted for each iteration reflecting community needs. Michaela has built a myriad of webinars, videos and resources that provide just-in-time training for families across topics, always thoughtful about reflecting an inclusive view and prioritizing accessibility. She has mentored a new generation of parent leaders, while improving supports for families, particularly those in the critical early years.
As Project Coordinator and a consummate professional, Michaela is deliberate in building partnerships with the Department of State Health Services, the State Outreach Center at our state’s school for the deaf, and educational leadership at state and local levels. She regularly provides training as a representative of the parent community across our state, and is a frequent presenter at state and national conferences, including EHDI. With funding from the Texas EHDI program, Michaela leads a project for Texas Hands & Voices targeting at improving loss to follow up in three target regions representing a quarter of our state’s population, including the grossly underserved Rio Grande Valley region along the Southern border. This project has included identifying hundreds of providers serving in various capacities across the hearing healthcare continuum, surveying various constituencies about training needs, executing focus groups of EHDI families to learn about their diverse experiences, and hosting well-attended training summits for providers. In addition to coordinating training on best practices and effective referrals, Michaela provided a resounding reminder of the need for empathy. Michaela continues to lead out in this project with the objective of facilitating robust and replicable regional support networks that will improve EHDI systems for families. Within the calendar year, more summits, webinars and facilitated regional meetings will be completed under her oversight. Michaela, a graduate of the graduate of the Hands & Voices Leadership-to-Leadership program was described aptly by her mentor: "The kindness, strength, and prowess of her communication skills, matched with her big picture view and hope for the future success of the organization, locally and nationally, makes her an ideal model of what a true parent leader is and can do for our children who are deaf, hard of hearing or DeafPlus and the systems we live in."