Invited Speakers

David is currently Principal and Chief Executive Officer of the Kelston Deaf Education Centre in Auckland New Zealand.  The Centre provides a residential school and a range of specialist services to Deaf and hearing impaired students throughout the North Island of New Zealand.  He previously held management positions in four other schools including eight years served as Principal of two state full primary schools (Y1-8). 

David has a particular interest in quality as the foundation for educational management.  This interest has been developed through his studies towards, a post graduate Diplomas in Education Management and Business (Quality) Management.

At Kelston Deaf Education Centre quality is best expressed through students’ rights to be part of a community that promotes full access, participation and achievement.  Kelston serves a community that is culturally and geographically diverse.   Through his wide ranging teaching career and current position David has experience in all aspects of school leadership and management from dealing with staff and parent groups to dealing with policy issues at a national level.

Melissa McCarthy, M.E.D., B.A., Melissa is originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked in a variety of educational settings with children from birth to 18 who have a hearing impairment. She moved to Sydney, Australia in 2004 to work at The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC). Melissa is the Manager of RIDBC Teleschool.

I have worked in Deaf Education for twenty years and have taken on various roles such as Resource Teacher of the Deaf, Satellite Class Teacher and Advisor of Deaf Children.

I am currently working in the role of Deaf Regional Coordinator. This covers work in the wide geographical area of northern New Zealand. In this role I manage the services and Resource Teachers of the Deaf. I hold a Masters degree in Special Education specializing in hearing impairment.

Attachments

• Promoting Social Interaction for Deaf Students who are Geographically Dispersed

Dianne Hill has an M. Ed. in Counseling from Auckland University [1994], a Trained Teachers Certificate [1978], a Diploma in The Education of The Hearing Impaired [1988], and she was a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow in 1996.

In 1989 Dianne began working as a Transition teacher at Kelston Deaf Education Centre [KDEC] and in 1990 she won the new position of KDEC School Counsellor. Dianne continues in this role and works with Deaf children at KDEC, in KDEC’s Auckland and South Auckland Resource classes and with families and caregivers.

Dianne lives in Auckland, New Zealand and enjoys Tai Chi, photography, and completing half marathons.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract

Debbie Lawrence works as an Itinerant Counsellor in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty region.  She describes herself as an oral deaf professional who shares life experiences as a hearing aid user with young deaf and hearing impaired students in mainstream school settings.  After a varied work career in New Zealand and overseas, she became a Secondary teacher specialising in Geography, Social Studies and Economics.  It was the experiences of her daughter as a young person with a hearing loss, that closely connected with those that she had as a young person that prompted her to consider a move to Deaf Education.  More recently, Debbie has qualified as a Counsellor specialising in Narrative Therapy.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract

Celia King. M. Couns (Hons) is severely deaf and communicates in spoken English and NZSL. Although trained mainly in Narrative Therapy, she prefers to work in the realm of Creative Arts Therapy and incorporates art, drama, journaling, sand tray work and music in her work with students. As a member of the Deaf Community and also the hearing world, she models strategies for the students in developing their own identity as D/deaf people moving in and between two worlds.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract