Meet Karen Putz, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Advocate

Karen Putz wears many hats and underneath them all is a remarkable woman, mom, writer and deaf and hard of hearing advocate. She is a deaf mom of three deaf and hard of hearing children and her husband is deaf too. She kindly shared her post The Last IEP Meeting with us. First, meet Karen and then share her joy as she tells us about her son’s journey through school in my next post.

Karen works full-time as a Video Solutions Manager for Zvrs and a National Manager, VCO. She gets to travel the country and improve the lives of deaf and hard of hearing customers through videophone access.
Also she provides Deaf Mentor services to families with deaf and hard of hearing children from birth to three years of age.


She is a board member of Hands & Voices  and she founded the Illinois chapter. Hands & Voices, as their mission states, is a parent-driven, non-profit organization providing families with the resources, networks, and information they need to improve communication access and educational outcomes for their children. Their outreach activities, parent/professional collaboration, and advocacy efforts are focused on enabling Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing children to reach their highest potential.

A couple of years ago, Karen decided to pursue writing. She started freelancing for a writing company. She has been blogging at “A Deaf Mom Shares Her World” since July, 2006. Her blog writing also opened up some opportunities for her as well and she has written for Disaboom, Parenting Squad , Chicago Moms Blog and a couple of other places. Karen has been syndicated in several newspapers around the U.S. She has been published in Midwifery Today, and in four books: On the Fence, Don’t Cut Me Again, The Book of Choice, and Discovering Deaf Identitites.


Karen is currently a contributing columnist for the Chicago Tribune Trib Local and you can find her on ChicagoNow at Barefoot in the ‘Burbs.


This prolific writer also runs a blog about Jobs, Careers and Callings  for deaf and hard of hearing people. That blog was born because she realized she wanted her kids to know about deaf and hard of hearing people in the work place– something she didn’t have while growing up.

You can read more about Karen Putz by checking these links. Read her guest post here.

Blog: http://deafmomworld.com/

Twitter: DeafMom