About Stephanie
Lived experience shaping how I see the world.
Stephanie Todd is the Deaf founder and voice behind WovenAware, a platform centred on Deaf awareness and lived experience.
This space was not created from theory, but from lived experience.
She is a writer, creator, and Deaf-led voice shaped by lived experience, identity, and a deep focus on how systems, communication, and everyday interactions affect people’s lives.
This work shows how Deaf experiences, communication, and access are shaped in everyday life.
It centres on the Deaf experience while also holding broader themes of access, belonging, identity, and awareness.
To explore the thinking behind this work, visit How Awareness Unfolds.
To see how this work moves in practice, visit Rhythm, Not Routine.
Experience WovenAware in BSL
A short British Sign Language (BSL) introduction to Stephanie and the story behind WovenAware.
You are welcome to experience it in BSL first.
English subtitles are included to support access.
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A Lived Experience Perspective
Born in Bermuda and raised in the UK after moving for Deaf education at the age of five, Stephanie’s life has been shaped by navigating hearing-dominant systems and communication barriers from an early age.
Growing up Deaf in environments not designed with accessibility in mind meant constantly adapting – lipreading, interpreting context, filling in gaps, and learning to exist in spaces that did not always fully include her.
These experiences shaped her understanding of communication, power, and belonging.
They also deepened her awareness of how systems – educational, medical, workplace, and social – influence not only access, but identity itself.
Her perspective is grounded not only in personal experience, but in a wider commitment to recognising lived realities that are often overlooked.
These experiences show the wider reality of many Deaf people navigating hearing-dominant environments.
A Letter to My Younger Self
A moment where past and present meet.
The Journey to WovenAware
WovenAware began as something much quieter.
Before there was a platform, there was Becoming Aware – a personal journey of noticing and making sense of lived experience.
After years of adapting to inaccessible environments and internalising silence, a period of healing and making sense of lived experience led Stephanie to reclaim her voice through writing. What began privately, as a way to make sense of lived experience, slowly became a daily practice of noticing patterns rooted in Deaf lived experience.
Becoming Aware was not created as a campaign or a brand. It was a space to notice patterns – in systems, in relationships, in identity, in power.
Through storytelling, Stephanie began to see how everyday interactions shape access and belonging. Writing became a way to move from survival toward clarity, and from silence toward intention.
Over time, that personal practice expanded. The writing began to connect beyond the self, into community, culture, and systemic awareness.
WovenAware grew from that foundation.
Today, WovenAware brings together lived experience, systemic insight, and personal growth – creating space for clearer awareness and meaningful conversation.
Motherhood and Motivation
As a mother of three, including a Deaf son, Stephanie’s work is deeply personal.
Watching her children navigate the world has strengthened her commitment to building spaces where Deaf identity is honoured, not corrected or overlooked. Advocacy exists not only in formal settings, but in everyday moments: school meetings, medical appointments, workplaces, and community spaces.
Her writing is shaped by the belief that access is not a favour; it is a right.
And Deaf identity is not something to overcome; it is something to celebrate.
Her perspective also reflects the realities of Deaf parenting, family life, and raising children across both Deaf and hearing worlds.
A Reflective and Deaf-Led Approach
Stephanie’s work is guided by a Deaf-centred perspective and a Deaf-led approach grounded in lived experience.
She stays with experiences with care, recognising the emotional and social impact of communication, inclusion, and exclusion. Rather than focusing only on what happens, her work stays with how those experiences shape people over time.
Her work seeks to:
look at systems and barriers affecting Deaf access and inclusion
share lived experience with honesty and care
create space for awareness to be seen more clearly
Awareness, in her view, is not a single action. It is an ongoing practice.
Beyond Content Creation
Stephanie’s work extends beyond storytelling.
Through WovenAware, she contributes to conversations around accessibility, inclusion, identity, and systemic awareness. Her platform bridges lived experience and wider social reflection, bringing together personal experience and system-level insight.
She is intentionally building WovenAware as a long-term Deaf-led platform for education, dialogue, and system-level awareness.
She no longer writes in isolation; she writes to ensure Deaf lived experience is seen with clarity, depth, and respect.
Stephanie’s reflections on Deaf identity and lived experience have also been featured on The Limping Chicken, a leading Deaf news and community platform.
Her work contributes to wider conversations about Deaf awareness, accessibility, and inclusive communication.
It continues to evolve as part of an ongoing journey of awareness and growth.
An Ongoing Journey
Stephanie approaches awareness as an evolving process, one that grows through experience, connection, and what we come to notice.
Through WovenAware, she invites others to notice and question alongside her, creating space for awareness, courage, and meaningful change.
Awareness is not a destination.
It is a way of being.