I'm raising money for Auditory Verbal UK to recognise the enormous part they've played in helping our profoundly deaf, younger daughter Martha to be the happy, confident and bright 7-year-old she is today.

Martha contracted pneumococcal meningitis when she was 14 months and lost all her hearing. She had 7 hours of surgery 5 months later to have bilateral cochlear implants.

We were two fairly traumatised and terrified working parents with no idea how to help our daughter learn to listen and speak with her new electronic and limited hearing. What we did know was that the early years are critical to speech development (and she'd already lost a lot of time) and that, thanks to the fabulous Oram family, it was entirely possible for cochlear implanted children to have speech and language in the top 10% of all children before starting school.

Using play and focusing on training the parents and carers, Auditory Verbal UK literally built Martha's listening skills and vocabulary word by word. Even now we still use many of the  same techniques to continue to build her language and we still have many professionals amazed by the quality of her speech.

This training and support meant Martha started primary school at the same stage as her hearing peers enabling her to thrive not struggle.

I want to ensure more people are able to access this help. All the money I raise will be used to help families in financial need to get the help for their profoundly deaf child they deserve.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep if you are able to and donate now.