A Voice for What's Possible

When Anna Cheng was in 5th grade, she had a choice. She could have made her SEVA project about anything. She chose CCHAT.

Not because she had to - but because she wanted the world to know what this place had given her.

SEVA, the Student Educational Video Awards, is a program coordinated by the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium and open to K–20 students across Sacramento County and the surrounding region. It celebrates the talents and visions of local student video producers. Students create educational videos that are shared with the community through educational cable channels and the SEVA contest. Anna’s submission tells the story of the place that helped her find her voice, a story that begins in her very first days of life.

A Diagnosis at the Very Beginning

Anna was born on July 19, 2015, at UC Davis, and her journey with CCHAT began almost immediately. She didn't pass her newborn hearing screening, and within her first days of life, her family learned she had congenital hearing loss, specifically, a mild to moderate hearing loss caused by a Connexin 26 genetic mutation. Neither parent had experienced hearing loss before. Both were carriers of the gene, and Anna's diagnosis was the moment everything changed.

By three months old, Anna had her first hearing aids. That same month, she enrolled in CCHAT's Baby and Me program.

Her mom, Kathleen, remembers hearing about CCHAT and being immediately drawn to how highly it was spoken of. After touring the center, the decision was easy. "The support and staff were exceptional and extremely supportive," Kathleen shared. "And the best everrrr." It was a promise made and a promise kept; CCHAT has been everything they hoped for and more.

What CCHAT Does… In Anna's Own Words

In her SEVA project video, Anna describes CCHAT as a school dedicated to teaching children who are deaf and hard of hearing to listen, speak, and share their ideas. She explains how CCHAT builds confidence and teaches students to use their voices every day, while families learn how to support their children and grow alongside them.

It's a description that reflects something bigger than curriculum. It reflects a philosophy.

Meredith Wright, one of CCHAT's teachers, speaks to the strategies behind that philosophy  - interactive activities and games that build auditory skills, and an intentional emphasis on connection. Students aren't just encouraged to communicate with their teachers. They're encouraged to communicate with each other. Part of that process includes helping children understand their own hearing loss - why they have hearing aids or cochlear implants, and that those devices are simply a part of who they are. Through that understanding, students are empowered to engage confidently with their peers.

A significant piece of what CCHAT does also happens outside the classroom. Teachers share strategies directly with families so that the work doesn't stop at the end of the school day. As Anna explains in her video, everyone really works together to support student growth. When families narrate daily life, build vocabulary into everyday routines, and make speech and language part of the home environment, that's when learning truly accelerates.

A Hidden Gem, Until You Need It

Licia Green has been part of the CCHAT family for over 22 years. She began as a parent and is now CCHAT's Director of Development. In Anna's video, she describes CCHAT as a hidden gem - one that many people, even within their own community, don't know exists until they have a child with hearing loss.

What they find when they arrive, she says, is an extraordinary staff: experts in the field of listening and spoken language, equipped with all of the technology students need to excel.

Katie Isbell, CCHAT's Director of Audiology, ensures that every student has on-site access to the support they need to develop speech and language at all times. For Katie, the most rewarding part of her role is watching how much students' language and auditory skills grow, and being able to work directly with the families who are on that journey alongside them.

Licia also speaks to what that first moment of diagnosis can feel like for a family: overwhelming, uncertain, and full of unanswered questions about what their child's future might look like. The staff at CCHAT, she shares, are wonderful at supporting both parents and students through that uncertainty. Kathleen reflects on how meaningful it was to connect with other families and with professionals who had been doing this work for years.

And there's something else CCHAT offers that can't be replicated later. Once students are ready to transition to their neighborhood schools, they may not have peers with hearing loss or families who share their experience. The time spent at CCHAT gives them something invaluable — a community of people who understand, before they step into a world that largely does not.

From Baby and Me to the Rapid Learner Program

Anna graduated from CCHAT and transitioned to her local school, where she has flourished in every sense.

She is currently a 5th grader in the Rapid Learner program at Del Paso Manor Elementary School, graduating this year. She reads at up to an 11th-grade reading level, and her family has officially run out of bookshelf space. Next year, she will attend the International Baccalaureate program at Winston Churchill Middle School in San Juan Unified School District. She plays soccer and loves art, and she's still friends with Ren -  a classmate she met in CCHAT's Toddler class.

For Kathleen, Anna's greatest achievement isn't a test score or a reading level. It's simpler and more profound than that.

"She is and sees herself as a 'normal' kid that just happens to wear hearing aids."

Changing Lives, One Child at a Time

At the close of her video, the message Anna and the CCHAT community share is one of possibility.

Kathleen is grateful for every child the program serves. Every child, she says, will go so far. The people who are part of CCHAT love sharing the good news of what happens at the center, because what happens there changes lives. Hearing loss, thanks to the work being done at CCHAT, will not be something that holds these children back.

Anna's SEVA project is proof of that. A child who learned to listen, speak, and share her ideas -  using her voice to tell the world about the place that helped her find it.