16th ANNUAL EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION MEETING
February 26-28, 2017 • Atlanta, GA
EHDI FAMILY LEADERSHIP AWARD
Candace Lindow-Davies
The Minnesota EHDI Advisory Committee would like to nominate Candace for the Family Leadership Award.
Candace and her husband Ron Davies have two children, one of whom is Deaf with physical disabilities. Lucas is 21, currently enrolled in Community College and works at Best Buy as a sales representative.
Candace is the current Director of Minnesota Hands and Voices (MN H & V) and has been in this role since the chapter's inception in 2002. She has dedicated her life to ensuring that parents who have children diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing have a place at the table.
Candace has significantly expanded the breadth of support that MN Hands & Voices provides to families. Under Candace's leadership the MN H&V program budget has expanded from under $30,000 in 2002 to nearly $600,000 in 2017. In 2003, the MN H&V program provided support to 28 families of children newly identified as D/HH. Today, the staff contact nearly all 270 families of newly identified children. In addition, Candace has improved the quality of support given to families by expanding from one staff in the metro area to 16 staff who are located regionally providing face to face connections with families statewide. Addressing the changing demographics of Minnesota, Candace identified the need to provide support to ‘newly arrived' families who are linguistically and culturally diverse. MN H&V now has cultural parent guides representing the Southeast Asian, Northeast African, and Spanish-speaking communities.
Candace is committed to family education. She is responsible for the advocacy materials at https://www.mnhandsandvoices.org/resources-information/steps.aspx which includes webinars "STEPS - Support, Training, & Education for Parent Success" and access to the ASTra book.
Offering her creative mind to a more global community, Candace has been the National President of Hands and Voices where she traveled to China to ensure that students across the globe have access to parent support and resources. She is working on an app that will help families know when to follow up post newborn screening as a member of the Center for Disease Control's Parent to Parent Committee.
Candace is the visionary for programs and support systems for parents on a local, national and global level. In Minnesota, Candace has served as chair/member of the EHDI Advisory Committee. She is an active voice on the Newborn Hearing Screening Advisory Board, The Collaborative Plan Steering Committee and multiple work groups. She has played a key role in the success of the legislation that led to insurance coverage for hearing aids for children up to age 18 and in protecting the state EHDI program during the time when blood spot screening was at risk. She initiated a program called "Hands & Voices League of Heroes" where kids can go up to DHH role models and get a "super power" from them such as respect, courage and empathy. This program was made accessible Nationwide for all Hands & Voices chapter to utilize.