Val Blakely: Val has two children with bilateral implants, and she always has an upbeat, positive attitude. She's a loving, patient mom, and her knowledge of CIs and hearing loss is amazing. She is constantly coming up with ideas to reach more parents of children with hearing loss to offer them options and hope.
Val volunteers a great deal of her time to on-line efforts. She writes a popular blog about her two kids with cochlear implants called deafkidscanhear.blogspot.com, she moderates the DeafVillage.com news aggregator site, and she comments frequently at the CI Circle Yahoo group for parents of kids with cochlear implants. Together with me and two other Cochlear parents she helps edit the CI Circle News blog (http://www.cicircle.blogspot.com/). Val also writes the Alabama blog for children with hearing loss with another mom (bamaears.blogspot.com) and often mentions cochlear implants on Facebook.
This is probably just some of what Val does -- she probably does a lot more I don't even know about! And she does it all without being pushy about implants, teaching or communication methodology or implant brand.
*AND*
Rachel Chaikof: I would like to nominate Rachel because she is an awesome role model for my son, Max who also uses a CI. Rachel's devotion to helping others learn about the option of listening and speaking and benefits of the Cochlear Implant is amazing. I have benefited from her website: http://cochlearimplantonline.com/site/immensely. I have learned so much that helps me directly impact my son's life. I also felt pride when she set out with her pals to create http://www.deafvillage.com/. I am in awe and amazement of her abilities, her talents, and her devotion to educating our world, and empowering those like my Max!
Recently, Rachel has undertaken a new endeavor. She has created the first official youtube cochlear implant channel, where she has just begun assembling an impressive collection of many of our Pediatric Cochlear Implant Circle kids- click here to meet our kids!
*Hats off to you both!*
