The second half of the HLAA mission statement says, “We strive to improve the quality of lives of people with hearing loss through education, advocacy and self help.” We strive to meet these standards and the Salt Lake City chapter has also reformatted it’s meetings to include emotional and social needs as well. Our next meeting is September 14, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11:00 at the Sanderson Center in the conference room. Our topic will be, “Don’t Be a Victim.”

Don’t be a victim of crime, abuse or isolation. Learn to be aware and advocate for yourself then get help as needed. We don’t have a guest speaker but Dr. Susan Chilton* will be there to help guide the discussion. We all have our personal stories to share and with our combined years of hearing loss experience, we make quite the expert. Together, we will develop information and make connections.

Refreshments will available and we will mingle before the meeting, during the break and afterward. We look forward to seeing you there so please mark your calendars.

*Dr. Susan Chilton received her Ph.D. in Educational Administration with an emphasis in Educational Psychology. She worked in the Jordan School district for 34 years. She has taught special education classes and help hundreds of students with various learning disabilities. In 1984 the district asked her to head the department and create a program to provide help and resources for at-risk students. She taught parenting classes, formed a drug prevention performance team, initiated a suicide prevention crisis line, developed teacher and student trainings on drug prevention, depression, gangs, eating disorders, crisis intervention, etc. And she organized a district crisis team that was first on the scene of any crisis that affected students and teachers. Her department became the place to which all JSD educators, students, and parents turned for answers and interventions. She has served on many boards in our state, including Suicide Prevention, Parents Helping Parents, Wasatch Canyon Hospital, and others.