Everything you might want to know about the four days. If your question isn't here, reach out by email to summit@krisdaria.com.
What it is, when it happens, and what it costs.
A free 4-day online event for hearing parents raising deaf and hard-of-hearing children.
It's 21 recorded interviews with Deaf adults, parents further down this road, teachers of the Deaf, a pediatric audiologist, ASL instructors, and Deaf creators. Plus seven live sessions and a private Facebook community.
Thursday September 17 through Sunday September 20, 2026, right before Deaf Awareness Week.
All times listed anywhere on this site are ET.
Entirely online. Nothing to install, nowhere to be.
When you register you'll get a private watch page link by email. It's the same link all four days, so bookmark it when it arrives. The link is also in every daily email during the summit.
The summit is free to watch between Sept 17th to Sept 20th. All 21 interviews, the Welcome and Closing calls with Kris, the "How to Sign a Story" workshop, and the community for the four days. No card, no trial, no catch.
There's also an optional All-Access Pass if you want to keep interviews for life plus join the live watch parties. Details are in The All-Access Pass page.
Hearing parents raising a deaf or hard-of-hearing child, especially in the first stretch after you find out, when the least support exists and the most decisions get made.
It's also for grandparents, caregivers, family members, teachers, SLPs, interpreters, and anyone else standing beside a deaf kid. If that's you, come and join!
This event is hosted by Kris Daria (@krisdaria). She's a hearing mom raising her Deaf son, Jayden, bilingually in ASL and English. Jayden's deafness was identified at 18 months and he received a cochlear implant at two.
Kris is Co-Chair of the Parent Council at Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf in Belleville, Ontario, a certified group facilitator, and the person who went looking for the info in this summit, couldn't find it, and built it.
21 Deaf creators, parents, educators, and advocates. Deaf adults who grew up in families like yours, parents a few years ahead of you, teachers of the Deaf, a pediatric audiologist, ASL instructors, authors and content creators.
The full lineup is on the registration page.
Both. All the 21 interviews are pre-recorded, 20 to 30 minutes each, and released in daily sets so you can watch when your week allows.
On top of that, there are 7 live sessions across the four days: the Welcome call, three watch parties two ASL workshops, and the Closing call. These calls are optional to join if you have the time and capacity to connect with others who are walking this journey.
No. All summit interviews are pre-recorded. The links for each day's set will be released every day at 9:00 AM ET and will be available to watch for 48 hours.
Most are between 20 to 30 minutes. Short and designed with your capacity in mind.
Register by signing up with your and email on the registration page.
Add summit@krisdaria.com to your contacts right after, so the daily emails don't land in spam.
When things open, when they close, and what to do if something breaks.
All the videos will be linked on the Schedule page. The link to this will be emailed to you on September 17th and again in every daily email during the summit. Same link all four days.
Each day's set of interviews goes live at 9:00 AM ET and will be available for 48 hours. Open the page, pick an interview, press play.
Want the whole thing in your calendar, release times and live sessions included? One click here.
Each day's set releases at 9:00 AM ET and stays available for 48 hours.
On Sunday, every single interview re-opens at once and stays open until Monday September 21 at 9:00 AM ET.
That's the whole point of Sunday. If your week ate your good intentions, Sunday is catch-up day and nothing is locked.
You didn't miss anything you were supposed to catch. Day 1 closes Saturday at 9:00 AM ET so Day 3 can have its turn.
It comes back on Sunday, along with everything else. Nothing is gone for good until Monday Sept 21st at 9:00 AM ET.
Fair question. Here's the honest answer.
When there's no clock, everyone waits for the weekend, and then the live calls and watch parties play to an empty room. The windows are what put people in the same room at the same time and turn this into an event instead of a folder of videos.
If your life genuinely can't hold 48-hour windows, the All-Access Pass takes the clock out of it entirely.
Not for one person, no. The windows are the same for everyone, and there's no way to bend them for one inbox without bending them for everyone.
The good news is Open Doors. Everything reopens Saturday September 19 at 8:00 PM ET and stays open until Monday September 21 at 9:00 AM ET, so the one you missed is coming back.
After that, the All-Access Pass is the way to keep them.
Yes. Phone, tablet, laptop, whatever you have. The watch page works on all of them and so do the captions.
These fix it about nine times out of ten:
Still stuck? Email summit@krisdaria.com with your device, your browser used. We'll help you sort it out.
Three things, in this order:
Still nothing? Email us and tell us which address you registered with. Sometimes there's a typo on file and we can fix it the same day.
Eastern Time. If you're on the West Coast, 9:00 AM ET is 6:00 AM your time. Everything closes Monday September 21 at 9:00 AM ET, which is 6:00 AM Monday on the West Coast.
What it is, what it costs, and whether you actually need it.
It's the live community experience, plus everything you'd want to keep. It includes:
Listed value is $97 CAD. The price rises as we get closer:
No. The free ticket is genuinely good and it's not a teaser. Twenty-one interviews, the Saturday workshop with Shawn, and both community calls with Kris.
The pass is for two situations: your week can't hold 48-hour windows, or you want to come back to these conversations in a year when a different question shows up. If neither is you, come to the free summit and take everything you can from it.
One hour on Zoom, three times over the weekend. Ten minutes of logistics and questions, thirty minutes where everyone watches one interview of their own choosing at the same time, then twenty minutes of open discussion.
It's the difference between meaning to watch and actually watching, with company.
A workbook with the key takeaways from every interview, so you have the whole summit in a form you can hand to your partner, your child's teacher, or your future self at 2:00 AM.
It's released on September 17 along with the first day's interviews.
You'll get an email with your login. Your library lives here:
https://academy.thrivecart.com/communities/guds-all-access-pass/signin
Sign in with the email you used at checkout. If you don't remember setting a password, use the reset link on that page. Everything is released on September 17, and then it stays put.
Yes. The pass stays available, now at $97 CAD.
If you're on the fence, buying before the summit starts is the cheapest it will ever be.
No. It's a digital product with instant access, and that's stated at checkout.
That said, if something isn't working, a login won't cooperate, or the pass isn't holding what you thought it did, email summit@krisdaria.com and we'll sort it out.
Yes. Every one of the 21 interviews is captioned and has a full transcript.
No. Not all videos have ASL interpretation.
14 out of 21 interviews were conducted with an ASL interpreter, who will be visible on the video. The rest were conducted in spoken English without an interpreter. Every one of the 21 is captioned and transcribed.
There will be an ASL interpreter present for the Welcome call, both Saturday live workshops, and the Closing call. We're working on getting interpreters for the live watch parties, but that isn't guaranteed.
Yes. Every interview has a transcript alongside it on the watch page, so you can read instead of watch, skim for the part you needed, or keep a copy.
Nicole Candolini, Courtney Drummond, Danny Elliot, COI, Erika Hackbarth, TK Keslick, Anela Poepoea, and Sean Power. Live watch parties will be interpreted by Nico Abad and Morgana RH.
Tell us what it is at summit@krisdaria.com and you'll get an honest answer about whether we can meet it, before you register.
We can't promise to meet every need this close to the event, but you'll get a straight answer either way.
There's a private Facebook group, open to everyone who registers. It's where the conversations keep going after an interview ends, where people ask the questions they were too embarrassed to ask an audiologist, and where you find the other parent whose week looks like yours.
The Welcome and Kickoff call on Thursday September 17 at 12:00 PM ET, and the Closing Community Call on Sunday September 20 at 2:00 PM ET. Both are free to every registrant.
They bookend the four days and they're the community's front door. No slides, no curriculum.
A chance to meet other parents and summit attendees in a virtual room setting. It's a space to connect, share, and discuss together.
You can decide to keep your camera on or off. You can participate in the chat or just listen in while you fold your laundry.
Plenty of people come to the first call and say nothing at all, and that counts as showing up.
No. Not one of them is required, and nothing in them is needed to make sense of the interviews.
Come to what serves you and skip the rest.
The private group is open for one week, Monday September 14 through Monday September 21.
All times ET. The Welcome call, both Saturday workshops, and the Closing call are ASL interpreted.
No. Kris's son Jayden has a cochlear implant. Their family uses ASL and English, both. This summit does not exist to tell you what to choose for your child. It exists so that whatever you choose, you're choosing it with the full picture in front of you instead of a partial one.
Some of our presenters have cochlear implants. Some learned sign language later in life. Some didn't. What they have in common is that they'll tell you their honest experiences of what it was like growing up deaf. You get to decide what is helpful and useful for your family. Without judgment.
No. This summit was designed for hearing parents. Everything is captioned and transcribed. Nothing assumes you know a sign, a term, or an acronym.
And if you want to leave with a handful of signs you can actually use at home, you can upgrade to the All-Access Pass to join ASL Basics for Everyday Connection, our live beginner workshop on Saturday. Perfect if you're starting from zero.
No. We understand every family is doing the best they can with the information they were given.
Likely, most families were not connected with a deaf adult at their first appointment. Where information was missing, that's a gap in what parents get told, not a verdict on you.
You'll learn things you wish you'd known sooner.
You are exactly who this was built for, and also, you get to set the pace.
Watch one interview. Or read one transcript in the car. Or upgrade to the All-Access Pass, watch nothing this week, and come back when you have a quiet moment. There's no attendance taken and nobody's checking.
A lot of parents say the first thing that helped wasn't information. It was watching a deaf adult talk about their childhood and realizing their kid has a whole beautiful life ahead of them.
Yes. Most of the content is aimed at families early on.
But almost nothing in these conversations expires at age five. Identity, language access, advocacy at school, what Deaf adults wish their families had understood. That carries on and some of it resonates even more when your kid is older.
You're welcome here and you'll get a lot out of it.
If you're standing beside a deaf kid in any capacity, the free ticket costs nothing and you can decide for yourself. Several of our presenters are professionals talking to other professionals as much as to parents.
Yes, and it's a fair question to ask.
The summit is built to reach hearing parents, because that's the gap Kris fell into when she found out about her son. But the people being interviewed are deaf or hard of hearing themselves. Some of the presenters became deaf or hard of hearing later in life.
14 out of 21 interviews were conducted with an ASL interpreter, who will be visible on the video. Some were conducted in spoken English without an interpreter, and those have captions available. Every video is captioned and transcribed.
There will be an ASL interpreter present for the Welcome call, both Saturday live workshops, and the Closing call. We're working on getting interpreters for the live watch parties, but that isn't guaranteed. If something specific would make this work better for you, please reach out to summit@krisdaria.com.
Of course. Most people register alone.
And it's worth knowing that a lot of partners come around later, usually by watching one interview over your shoulder rather than by being handed a four-day event. The transcripts and the Summit Cliff Notes exist partly for that. They're easy to pass to someone who won't sit through a video.
Two reasons:
The majority of attendees will watch the summit for free, and there's only a small portion who upgrade to cover the cost of putting this event together for everyone else.
There are real costs behind hosting this event. Months of work, recording and editing 21 interviews, captions and transcripts, interpreters, website and video hosting. The All-Access Pass is what covers all of it and makes the free ticket possible.
Not this round. Every interview, caption, and transcript is in English.
We'd love to offer Spanish in a future round. This is the first Growing Up Deaf Summit and we're learning as we build it. If language is what's keeping your family out, email summit@krisdaria.com and tell us. That's how the next one gets better.
No.
When you register, you'll be added to the summit email list so we can send event updates, interview links, and summit information.
Presenters will not automatically receive your email address. Some presenters offer optional resources you can access by giving them your email directly, but that choice is always yours.
You can unsubscribe at any time, and there's a link at the bottom of every email.
For the people who want to help this reach more families.
The September lineup is closed at 21 and every interview is already recorded, so we can't add anyone this round.
But get on the list for the next one. This application goes straight to Kris and it's the first place she'll look when the next round opens.
Please do. That's how this reaches the parent who's sitting in a waiting room right now with a folder of pamphlets and no idea what happens next.
Send them to growingupdeaf.com. If you'd like graphics or ready-made copy, email us and we'll send you the pack.
Possibly. Tiers and what's in each one are on the sponsorship page, and all of them are customizable.
Before any of that though, tell us what you do and who you're trying to reach. You'll get a straight answer about whether this audience is a fit. Kris would rather turn a sponsorship down than take money for the wrong match.
Email summit@krisdaria.com.
Get your free ticketFree registration is open now. The summit runs September 17 to 20, 2026.