TRANSCRIPT - TSBVI Coffee Hour: WREIC - Transitioning from Early Intervention - Determining the ChildsÕ Needs Together Ð 11/14/22 >>Gina: Hi, everybody. Good afternoon. We're going to be talking about little T transition from Part C to Part B. My name is Gina Herrera and I am one of the Colorado project co-directors. I do see my partner here is on the call as well. But I have the extreme honor of facilitating this panel today because it is an incredible group of experts that have gone through the transition, have some ideas on how to make it successful for families. This is part of the WREIC conference and the way this session came to be, I was sharing this story with folks earlier, is in Colorado we had a situation where a family of a kiddo who is Deafblind transitioned to their school district and for whatever reason -- and I truly don't know all the details -- but for whatever reason it did not go well and it was so bad that the family moved to another school district. So I have vowed, and worked with my colleagues, to make sure this doesn't ever happen to our families again. And what can we do to be proactive at the Colorado Deafblind Project so it doesn't happen again. So with that, I'm going to introduce the panelists to you. They're going to take some time to talk about their current processes. We have a list of questions that we will go through and then we will open it up for you guys to be able to ask questions as well. The questions will be in the chat, as Kate said before, so feel free to use that. And you can put them in there at any time and if it's appropriate we will go ahead and answer it at the moment. So let's go ahead and start with my colleague, Jessica, and have you introduce yourself. >>Jessica: Thanks, Gina. Hi, everybody. My name is Jessica Meizell. I work for the Colorado Deafblind Project as a Deafblind technical assistant specialist and I'm also an early childhood special educator at a nonprofit here in Denver. I have also worked in early intervention. I'm doing developmental intervention in district preschools, lots of transition background. Thanks. >>Gina: Thank you. Maurice. >>Maurice: Hi, everybody. I'm Maurice Belote. I am in San Francisco, California. I retired from the national Deafblind Network last December as project coordinator of California Deafblind Services. For ten years before that I was a classroom teacher at the California School for the Blind in the old Deafblind program, when they had one, and currently I am adjunct faculty in a Deaf Ed credential program at Mt. St. Mary's program in Los Angeles and I teach one of the four courses that's a collaboration between the National Center for DeafBlindness and the University of South Dakota. I teach the course on transition and I see my boss Amy is join us from South Dakota. Hi, Amy. And I also co-chair the national coalition on Deafblindness. So we are currently trying our best to get Cogswell Macy over the line before the 117th Congress ends at the beginning of January, but if not we hope to reintroduce it in the new year. >>Gina: Fantastic. Thank you. Lauren. >>Lauren: Hi. My name is Lauren Rich. I am currently an assistant director at our campus programs at the Utah schools for the blind. Previous to that I was a school district administrator in related services overseeing a number of people, but teachers of the visually impaired were one of those groups. That's how I got introduced to the field, saw it from a district perspective, and then came over to the campus for a campus perspective. >>Gina: Thank you. And Heather Joy. >>Heather: I'm feeding my kids. I'm Heather Joy -- so here's the one who is screaming out of excitement, although everyone's home sick. This is probably my first time ever doing this with both of my kids. This is my daughter. So hopefully it's not too noisy in the background. I'm Heather Joy and I live in Phoenix, Arizona and my two kids, Soliz right there is 15, and Camila is 13. It's been a while since we have done the early intervention transition but definitely I've done it and I am definitely an expert as far as working with teens and things like that. I'm happy to be here. I don't know if there's anything else you want me to include. >>Gina: That's good. Thank you. >>Heather: The other thing I wanted to mention is everyone is sick, including my husband, so I may be in and out as far as not as present as I normally would. Thanks for your patience. >>Gina: Absolutely. Thanks for being here, even with everyone sick in your house, we appreciate your time. So I think Maurice is going to start us off to talk a little bit about the process that he has used in California around this early transition. >>Maurice: Okay. Thank you, Gina. Let me make a note of the time here so I don't go too long. I am no longer with the state Deafblind Project but I was with them for a long time and I know well how it works, how the California project works. All of the projects I know are different, but I'll speak sort of on behalf of the State Deafblind Projects and talk a little bit about what's unique about the Part C to Part B transition for children who are Deafblind. Because there really are some very, very unique components when you're talking about transitioning a child who is Deafblind. So as a state Deafblind Project person, we are the ultimate outsiders, at least from my perspective, and you could say that's for better or perhaps it's for worse or probably it's a little bit of both. But we're not with the district. We're not with the early intervention program. In California we happen to not be with the state education agency, unlike I know some of you are. So we're university based so we really are outsiders. And so because of that, I think a lot of people's willingness to have us involved is based on -- in Deafblindness we talk -- and I'm going to talk about this a little bit more, relationships built on trust and bonds. But our ability to be a player on both sides of this transition, the early intervention Part C side and the school district Part B side or whatever the LEA is, comes from our ability to maintain a good positive working relationship with these agencies and programs. And so a lot of that just comes from personal relationships we have with people. So people who have worked with us for a long time and trust us that we are going to be a part of the solution and not just create problems. Because I often used to say that if we ever start getting in the way of what would otherwise be happening in a more natural, positive way then we know, sort of like a good intervener, we know when to step back and let the process play out. Our project in California is called California Deafblind Services. So the word Deafblind is right in our name and that can be scary, especially for parents of young children who are either still in the early intervention side of this or have transitioned over to preschool. But I think we have to be very careful about the way that we throw around the term "Deafblind" because I think it can be really overwhelming. I think we may be dealing with families who maybe have never heard that term or never heard that term applied to their child. In the way we often say a parent or a family member may say to us, well, yes, my child has a problem seeing and, yes, my child has a problem hearing but Deafblind may not be something that's -- that they've used before. And I think sometimes as professionals we can be a little loose in the way that we throw out labels and sometimes say has anybody ever mentioned, you know, this diagnosis or this syndrome or whatever. And I think we have to be really careful. I try to catch myself when things like that are starting to come out of my mouth, and pull them back in. And then speaking of that, I think that there are times in the transition process when our involvement as a state Deafblind Project, could put the family and/or the educational team sort of over the edge. There are times I always felt like when one -- either the family or the team just felt like they couldn't take one more person or one more agency or one more organization. And I often tell administrators that it is never helpful to point out at an IFSP or an IEP meeting how large a child's team is and make jokes about how we're going to need a bigger table or a bigger conference room or I have never seen so many people crammed inside this little office. That's never helpful but I do think that there are times when one more person is just going to be too much. And so one of the strategies that we've used in the past is thinking of ourselves more like coaches and coaching people as they go through the process and before they go into meetings but actually not necessarily being there ourselves if our presence is going to be that thing that pushes people over the edge. So there have been so many times when I have sat out in the car of an early intervention specialist or a family member and said, okay, I know you don't want me in there but before you go in, here are these things that I want you to remember and here's a checklist and here's something you can refer to and here's a book you can lay on the table that shows everybody how well prepared you are. So I can kind of like be a little bit behind the curtain, a Wizard of Oz reference there, and just kind of supply information but not actually have my presence be a part of the process. And so that's pretty unique to Deafblindness. Another thing that's unique to Deafblindness, and especially our role on as state Deafblind Project people, is this idea of child focused versus family focused. So people often say -- and there's a lot written. You can find all sorts of articles about this -- that IFSPs are family focused and when a child transitioning from Part C to Part B then the IEP that they transition to is child focused. So the program, the philosophy and the approach of the program goes from family focused to child focused. I just don't think that that model works very well when you're talking about children who are Deafblind. If people say that, I think we have to be ready to point out that -- I think this is probably true for all children, but I can only speak on behalf of teams who are serving children who are Deafblind is that when you're talking about children who enter preschool and are likely, because of their Deafblindness, to be prelingual at that point in their lives, then you're not talking about a 3-year-old that's going to run into preschool every day and share lots of rich, relevant information about things that go on at home at what time preschool staff can build on. And, conversely, these are kids that may not rush home at the end of their preschool day and share with their family all this really rich, relevant information about what happens at preschool. Because, obviously, when you're talking about children who are Deafblind you want all of this connected so that the school and the home are all on the same path and are all aware of what's going on. So I think that it's easy to say we move from a family focused approach to a child-focused approach but I think our approach in Part B has to be very, very family focused. We never stop that family focus. So if people say things like that at Part C to Part B transition meetings, sometimes that's something that I point out, that we are much more family focused throughout life than that. And I have four more minutes so I'll -- I'm going to talk about one more feature that's really very specific to Deafblindness, and that's bonding. And one of the things that as a Deafblind Project we can really support. When a child moves from early intervention services, which are probably home based, or at least mostly provided within the home. There may be a toddler program or something that the family goes to with the child, but mostly home based, and moves to preschool, which is mostly center based for most kids, not necessarily all kids, of course. But when a child moves from early intervention to preschool, they are encountering probably their first opportunity to bond with somebody who is not a family member or is not a trusted earl intervention service provider that's been coming into the home for a long time. It's a child's first opportunity often -- not always -- but often, to bond with a brand-new adult outside of the home. We know that the developing a bond with a child is dependent on having a trusting relationship with that child. So from a child's perspective, when they're moving into preschool and starting to interact with all of these new adults, I think that they're thinking can I trust you to tell me who you are? Can I trust you to tell me what we are going to do? Can I trust you to tell me when you're near me? Can I trust you to tell me when you're leaving me and when you're coming back. So all of those questions of trust that a child is thinking, that's going to be evident from the very first moment that child steps into that preschool program. And I often tell early intervention and preschool teachers that it is much easier to develop a relationship with a child built on trust than it is to repair a broken relationship. It's a lot harder once a child doesn't trust you -- and I'm not saying it's because you're a bad person, not at all. I'm just saying that as service providers we all do things that, whether on purpose or not, that may lead a child to question whether or not we are trustworthy and worth them putting in the effort to bond with us. Gina, I think that's my first 15 minutes. I talked a little bit about child focus and family focus, that whole issue and what the state Deafblind Project brings, and then bonding, because it's so huge. But I'll fill in other things as we go through the questions. >>Gina: Perfect. Thank you. Jessica. >>Jessica: Hi. That was great, Maurice. I do love going into trust and bonding, especially being a teacher of kids who are Deafblind. So with my experience I'm going to talk about my teaching job, my teaching hat. So we kind of have two steps at the program that I'm in and it's a school for children with vision impairments. We have an infant and toddler program, which is a parent coaching model where the parents bring their kids to the center and they get some early intervention there. And also they're getting services in the home, typically. So when it's time for them to transition to our preschool program, it's typically done through their service coordinator and one of our therapists from our school will go to the IFSP transition meeting at the end. So they come up with a transition report, which identifies the family's needs and the goals for their transition and the present levels of performance and evaluation strategies and next steps. So that's kind of what goes with the family. And then, you know, I feel like even coming from working in a school district and working at a private nonprofit, I have never seen these transition reports as a teacher. So I was just thinking of that, it would be nice to be able to see that as a teacher coming in, if families would want to share that. But the place where I work, it's called Anchor Center. At Anchor Center we want parents to be ready and prepared for these transitions. Over the course of the infant and toddler program, their time in early intervention, we're building those relationships with the families and maintaining them. We're working to identify outcomes and goals for the child and family to support their transition into their new setting. So we kind of go with the idea of giving parents some power, of seeing themselves as the expert on their child, trying to give them resources so that they have the information about the IEP process and their rights and that they see themselves as part of the IEP team right off the bat. So hopefully they'll go in, not feeling like they need to fight for services, you know going in and being a little more open and willing to work as part of the team. And then so around when the kid is 2 years and 9 months, our team does something called a TASSA, a transdisciplinary arena style. I know in the school districts, you know, the service coordinator for the IFSP will set up the child assessment. So the child goes in. The first visit is usually hearing and vision screening and then a developmental screening. And they'll go on to do a transdisciplinary play after that. So the TASSA gathers family info, has the medical diagnosis, visual and hearing diagnosis, and different domain, cognitive, physical, vision, hearing, and kind of comes up with this great document that has where they are now and possible next steps, which are really great to send to the child's, you know, next setting. When they're coming to our preschool and we know them, we kind of -- we're lucky in that way because we do know our kids and we know the families. When we're preparing them to go to a school district or they're dually enrolled in our program and the district's program -- because we are only two days a week -- we can ask families to reach out to their new school team and ask if they would want to have a conversation with the team over at Anchor Center. And that's usually very successful and it's really great to have these conversations with the teachers in a district, especially around, you know, sharing the strategies that we're doing at Anchor, hand under hand. We're showing them what object cues or tangible symbols we have been using as part of their calendar system. I'm explaining calendar systems a lot of times. I'm explaining why it's important that we have the calendar. So it's this really nice -- I think it helps to make a nice transition to the other program when they have all the materials consistent. And I did not make a note of time. I set my timer here ready for 15 minutes, so let me know when I'm done. But, yeah, at Anchor we do the functional vision assessment and we have, you know, information on hearing as well, their audiology reports. So we create a learning profile for each kid, and that is in the Google Drive, the shared documents. So we go through and we have pictures of positioning. We have everything you can think of, like how the child learns best. You know, what they need to be able to access learning and things like that. So I feel like it's really helpful, and we always send plenty of copies with parents and tell them to give it to their school teams, which it seems like they are, because the teams are always reaching out to me and it's just been really great to have. Let's see, and I think that was -- that's pretty much it. You know, kind of a lot of different sides coming from where I am but basically it's just really empowering families and, you know, letting them know that we're here to support them. If they want me to go with them to an IEP meeting, I'm happy to do so but usually they felt confident and comfortable enough to go on their own. >>Gina: Jessica, you had a question in the chat. What does TASA stand for? >>Jessica: Transdisciplinary arena style assessment. It's just kind of -- it's sort of a play-based assessment. Like a transdisciplinary play-based assessment. >>Gina: Lauren. >>Lauren: Okay. These are good questions and I personally felt inadequate in answering them when I read them. I was like, man, what do we do? So I'll come at this from a couple different angles just because speaking today from a couple different roles. I'll first talk about campus programs specifically and we're a little bit different because we also house people who are integral to the early intervention piece for our students who then work for the same organization who can pass them to our campus programs. So inherently there's a little bit more connection between those two processes because we're housed under the same Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. However that doesn't mean we haven't been focusing on how to make that transition happen. Some of the things I have been hearing the other two panelists say have rung true for us as well. That transition from going from early intervention home-based services to preschool is a really challenging and scary for parents. I would say most of the time when I'm in meetings or talking with parents or giving tours of our preschool, the biggest thing that I personally try to do is validate their experiences that they're going through. They're not alone. And that it's a really big jump to consider sending your child to preschool and moving from that 3 to 3 transition is big for any parent, and particularly a parent who has a child who has extra in special needs, because you're trusting somebody else with your baby and you might not do that very often, especially if your child is Deafblind. So I try really to be very focused on parents and making them feel like they understand what the setting is going to be like, even if that child might not end up coming to our campus programs, I try to make sure they have an overall picture of what this campus program might look like versus other options for preschool. That way they can make the best decision and feel the most informed. I feel like the meetings that are least successful is when parents feel the most unsupported or when they don't know the answers to things, when they feel like people are stepping around them to make decisions for their child. Everyone wants to be informed so I try my best to make sure that our parents feel very informed and have power on their side to make decisions. It's very difficult to make a decision for your child or be an active part of the IEP team if you don't have the answers. Whenever I have families come here or talk about preschool, I encourage them to take a tour of the other preschool options, even if we have a child who is pretty sure they're going to make sense here because they need intensive services. I say you should tour another preschool class just so you know. It's good for parents to have a big picture because down the road they're going to need that information anyway, in the longevity of their child's academic career. Having a big picture -- and sometimes I think for parents, especially as they transition into Part B we talk a lot in educational lingo and they're just so new to that. They haven't been part of the academic world yet. The pre-K through 12, so a lot of that is new to them, so make sure that they kind of understand the different least restrictive environment continuum in ways that will help them make that decision I think arms them with the information they need and also makes it easier to have discussions as a team that are best for the child. Some of the strategies that we put in place specifically for those kids coming to campus programs are making sure that the provider who's been working with the family lets us know ahead of time some critical information. That's so much more helpful when we walk into a meeting and we have some key information about the student to know, rather than walking into the meeting and trying to gather all the information at that moment. So when the provider, who is working with the family and the child can just give us some -- like a ten-minute conversation about some really critical features that we know about this case or this family or the student and what their needs are, I feel like we're all better prepared for that meeting. We also try really hard when we do have a child who is, you know, confirmed coming to campus that we have a lot of meetings and a lot of contact with that parent before the child actually comes to class. Because sometimes in the past it has not been successful when we've had the IEP meeting, we've decided placement, and then we get caught up in life and we just don't reach out and have those contacts. And those parents are used to a lot of personal contacts because that's how early intervention works, and they're used to having that person present in their life. And then they come to campus and they're like we don't know anything that's happening. We're like, we got it. But they don't know that we got it and they feel uncomfortable. We have had to think about how can we replicate that relationship that they have developed with the early intervention specialist with the teacher and with us as administrators, because they do have a really -- most of them have a really deep and connected relationship with that early intervention provider because they have been there for years and seen them through these really intense parenting moments and child growth moments. And so now it's a little bit of a break up for them and we're starting this new relationship, so we're trying to replicate that. From a district side of things, I think, you know, we get invited to a ton of district meetings still where the child will go through the three to three transition through the district meeting before they can even come to campus programs. When I was in a district position and now being in a lot of district meetings, I think one of the biggest things that teams miss are personal connection with parents and children. And I think that's hard when you are just a testing hub. Like most of the time these districts don't know the child and so they're really just doing some basic testing to get that first IEP done. You can tell when a team has put in more effort and when they're kind of phoning it in. And I feel like the teams that are more successful and when you get the best results and the best IEP, that ultimately helps the team out in the long run is when the assessment team takes time to talk to all of the people that are involved in that child's life. So really slowing down and making sure that you're not just doing the standard battery of three to three assessments to get that kid into the IEP and on is really important. Even though that assessment team might not be the final team that that child is with, they're the first point of contact with that parent for that district. They make a big difference and they don't know they consider that. They're like, we're just kind of the stopping ground. We're going to do the assessment, write the IEP, and send them on to their placement. But first impressions are important and that first impression for a family can be really important to consider whether or not this district or the placement that the team is proposing is really going to be best for their child. Hopefully that answered the question. I didn't look at the clock either. >>Gina: Great. Thank you. Heather Joy. >>Heather: I'm Heather Joy. I have already introduced myself but I don't think I mentioned that both of my kids were born with Wolff Hersh horn syndrome, one of the syndromes that kids are sometimes born with Deafblindness. So you guys are really pushing me to go down memory lane for sure. Elise is 15 years old and Camila is 13 years old and we at this point have experienced so many transitions and when I said earlier when I introduced myself that I do see myself as an expert, it's really in the area of building relationships with teams. If I would have known that that would be a huge part of my life as a parent before my kids were born, I wouldn't have really gotten it. So when Solis was three years old, we were attending a school here in Phoenix called Foundation for Blind Children. We were able to attend their Friday program and we would attend every Friday and it was a Godsend for sure because I was able to create relationships with people who ended up being really important in our lives. And when we were about ready to go into the transition from home-based services to school, I just knew it was important that I would reach out to people who were already advocates in my life. I don't remember who I was with but I remember sitting in this side room and writing this little list of advice from someone who at that time was a real advocate for me. And I really took that and I wish I had that list to share with you. That's maybe somewhere around in my papers. But I remember taking the advice really to heart and the reason I bring that up is that is definitely a part of my process of advocating for my children is really important, is knowing who my advocates are and really knowing how important relationships are when it comes to eventually getting -- helping my children get what their needs are met. I did write a little -- a couple of little notes I'm going to refer to. Specifically when I remember going to the preschool setting -- and I knew at the time I wanted my son to attend -- so foundation for blind children isn't just a Friday program, it's also a preschool and it goes until fourth grade. And I knew at that time that I wanted my son to be able to attend Foundation for Blind Children, at least for his preschool areas. He ended up going there until second grade. And I remember going to the preschool. It was definitely overwhelming and it was overwhelming because they didn't understand the complexity of my child and the complexity of him being Deafblind. I had already had a close relationship with the Deafblind Project, thankfully. And I remember having to advocate that -- and this is part of the advice that that person gave me -- is to not have all of the evals happen in one day and being able to advocate that it was really important that, because of his complex needs -- and I don't think I used those terms at the time, but I do now. Because of his complex needs he needed time to be able to do the evaluations with, you know, a break and that they would need time to get to know him and build whatever level of trust they would need to build in that little period of time that they were trying to collect their information about what his needs were. And I remember -- I also remember advocating for with the speech eval doing a communication matrix. It was our first experience with a communication matrix. And so really pushing them to look outside of what they would typically do to meet the needs of -- to meet the unique needs of my son, including doing a Deafblind -- an evaluation that was more specific to Deafblindness than specifically Deaf, specifically Blind, so making sure there was a Deafblind component to the evaluations. Transition from -- so when my son was 3, my daughter was 1, so my particular family obviously is so unique in that we were really -- so much of our home time was very, very intimate and we had a little room set up for them and all these different things going on at home. What Maurice was talking about at the beginning of the time that we started this afternoon, it really resonated with me how important it is that the parents' power is not taken away. The parents who have children born with complex needs already are in a -- already if our child is born with Deafblindness, there's already a trickiness around even early intervention coming into the home and early bonding maybe being challenging for some parents. And so when that transition from home to school is happening, that felt so important to me that I would continue having a significant voice for my children and that I would continue being the expert in their lives. And I remember it being a tricky balance for me because then all of a sudden there were all of these professionals that knew different bits and pieces about development and things like that. So I think what Maurice was talking about around bonding and around empowering the parent rather than the expert taking that power away is so, so, so important. When my daughter made a transition from home to preschool, it was a different experience for me -- and I'll just share quickly, without getting too much into it. But I do think it's important in this context that when she went to preschool, it was a time in my personal life that I -- I went from survival mode of caring for two kids with complex needs to letting them both go to someone else, them being in someone else's care. And it was a time when I really struggled. I finally kind of had this clarity and knowing -- and it wasn't clear at the time, but looking back I guess it is -- that I was experiencing some mental health challenges. And I think that's really important for professionals specifically to understand -- and I think again what Maurice was talking about -- this is not just about switching from family to child, it does continue to be family, family, family -- and it still is to this day, for my family. That having a child with complex needs or multiple disabilities or Deafblindness, it affects the whole family, ultimately. And I think that gets missed for professionals sometimes because we're trying to -- well, I'm not a professional but the professionals often are trying to get all of the things done and kind of forget that this is affecting the entire family, if that makes sense. And then the last thing I wanted to share quickly -- I want to find a copy of it for you. I apologize that I wasn't more prepared today. The last couple of weeks have been pretty challenging for my family. Talk about survival mode, we haven't been in survival mode for a long time. But I created for my son's first IEP -- and I think for my daughter, but my son's more -- I created a little "about me" portfolio. It's before I knew what that was. Before I did all the Deafblind trainings and things. But it was a beautiful little piece about Solis -- I remember having time to do some watercolor or something. My son's face was in the middle and the sun beams were people important to him at the time. And the other pages were different photos of things we did as a family -- like the team in an IEP form or evals would be able to know he loved going camping and loved being at the beach and different things. I always feel that's so important for me as a parent and for other parents to include photos of our children. It's like a mini person-centered plan idea or a student profile kind of a thing where we're just showing glimpses of life outside of what people are seeing on paper. >>Gina: Thank you so much for that. It's so important to pay attention to that emotional piece as well. You know, sometimes as professionals we're very quick to get to the paperwork and the process and don't stop and pay attention to the emotions that families are going through. So, thank you for that view. >>Heather: You're welcome. I'm happy to share. >>Gina: We've got a couple of questions that we'll go through and then there's also some questions that are already generating in the chat. So let's go ahead and start with the first one. Maurice, I'm going to ask you to start us again. But what are one to two things that you would consider strengths for the current process that you use? >>Maurice: Okay. So this has been really powerful listening to the other three people. I really appreciate everything you said. I just -- Heather, it means so much the information that you share. And I just think about how we can't lose sight of the fact that putting a little 3-year-old on a bus. Oh, my gosh! To the school it's just another kid coming to school, another preschool kid, new preschool kid. But this isn't just any child, this is my child or your child. And 3 years old, these little kids, you know, sending them off across town to these people that you don't -- you know, you haven't completely built a trusting relationship with. I just think it's really scary. Gina, to your question. So one of the most important things we can do as a state Deafblind Project is -- and you may not all agree with me -- but we try in California, as much as possible, to not take sides. You know, part of the work that I do as a sex educator, and one of the things we always say in sex education is stick to the facts. If you just stick to the facts, you can't get in trouble. Of course you can get in trouble but maybe not as bad. It's kind of like that with the state Deafblind Project. Like, our job is to provide information and at times of transition that are already highly charged and there's a lot of emotions and fear and, you know, possible mistrust and the story, Gina you told at the beginning of the family having to move, it's not easy to do, especially as a professional in meetings, to sit in a meeting -- well, sometimes people will say things in meetings that just educators and administrators will say things that just aren't true and then I have to raise my hand and say, no, that's simply not true. But to remind people that we're there to support the whole team and to support the process. And something that I always did was I told administrators that if they said things to me, I was going to share that with the family. Like, I was not going to keep secrets. Don't tell me secrets just to unload on me and make that my burden. And the same thing the other way. I would tell family members I share information. I want everybody to work together. Like I said before, if our involvement doesn't move these forward, we step back. But hopefully we're part of the solution and not part of the problem. And, Heather, I'm glad you talked about what we call personal passports, thanks to our years of working with David Brown. We've had a lot of success with personal passports and making sure that a child, when they're transitioning from Part C to Part B has a comprehension personal passport that goes with them that's written from the child's perspective that says this is who I am. This is me and these are the important people in my life and these are the things I like and this is how I express those likes and these are the things that I don't like and here is how I express those and all of the components that make up a good personal passport. I think that's a really powerful contribution that we can make as a project is just promoting that practice and helping people so that when we're providing training -- and that's a lot of what we do as a Deafblind Project, is that we're training people how to do that and how to use it in an effective way. So, Gina, I would say maybe those two to start with. There may be more coming later in the session. >>Gina: Thank you. Jessica? >>Jessica: Hi. Yeah, I agree with the personal passport. That's something that we've been doing for years over at Anchor Center and it's just, you know, when families -- families give us information when their child starts preschool about their likes and dislikes and makeup of their family and, you know, things that we need to know about the child, what they like, what they dislike, what it looks like, like Maurice said. So that's something that we also try to include in those passports to the district. And so I think that's something that we do really well. And just being this center-based program from early intervention through preschool. You know, families are just -- we become so close and at the end of -- when the kids are going to kindergarten, families are asking us can they just stay one more year? We would love that but we end at preschool, we end at age 5. So having that passport to send along with them is really helpful. And having those conversations with the district teams. I'm always surprised to find out how many teams just don't really understand object communication or calendar boards, and so it's always a good thing to be able to talk about those things. If you as a parent know about that then bring that as well and talk about how important that is, that anticipation piece for our kiddos with Deafblindness. Another thing that's been really helpful too is working at Anchor Center and working at the Deafblind Project here in Colorado. I have always been in contact so whenever a child goes to a school district, a child with Deafblindness goes to the school district, I would contact Gina to let her know, hey, this child's going to be going to this school district, so she could give them a heads up in the district. Those are a couple of things that we do well. >>Gina: Thank you. Lauren. >>Lauren: So I think campus programs, a couple of successful things we have done have been when we receive an IEP from a district team and we know a student is going to be coming with us, we adopt that IEP and then within 30 days we hold a new IEP to update it. So we give the student a little bit of time, make sure we get to know them more before we rewrite anything on the IEP, so that way it's something that will be a more robust document. But we also, within that first week, meet with the parents just so they can see all the related servers, know exactly who is going to be working with their child, and get, you know, really concrete this is who this person is and what they're going to be doing and how can I contact them and how can I expect to be contacted. That has eliminated some other pitfalls that we used to have. That 30-day meeting has turned into a really nice experience because it's usually very celebratory, we've had the student for 30 days, here's what they're learning, this is what they're doing. I feel like those two touchpoints have made families feel more comfortable and part of our school culture. That process has been shuffle. The other big thing that we have done is kind of a longer term process but we've started to do an entrance and an exit plan for our students at our campus programs, specifically. We go K through post high. In the past we have fallen into this trap where families come at preschool. No one really talks to them about the long-term academic future of their student, so they always assume, well, the student did preschool here, they're going to do the rest of K through post high at Utah School for the Blind, when that actually might not be the student's most appropriate environment at preschool. And we've had some cases where we have had some students who have been here for a long time and it has been a detriment to their development because we're have really restrictive environment. Even with our preschool parents we start to have these conversations or just bring it up so that way we're not totally blind siding them when first grade comes and they have developed these deep relationships with us and, what? You're kicking me out? It becomes very emotional. We try to make sure parents always know this is a short-term placement. This is meant to be the best for your child but as soon as it's not the best for your child we're going to find out where that next place is. And it might be here through when they're 22 but it also could not. Having those conversations earlier has been really successful so far. Parents have felt like they have more information and then when we do have those conversations later, I feel like they're much more prepared -- and it's still emotional because any transition is emotional -- but I feel like they have better information and they're actually looking towards what their child's academic future might be. That has really been an interesting question to ask families and parents, what do you see your child's academic future looking like? Sometimes they have never conceptualized that. This is here and now. What is that going to be in the future? I think that has been a successful practice so far. >>Gina: Good. Thank you. Heather Joy? >>Heather: So pre-meetings are really important, in my experience. I think that's one of the things I learned in that little -- the person that was my advocate helped me and she kind of taught me about that, to kind of reach out to specific -- like the PT, the OT and specifically have like a conversation. Sometimes the providers will reach out to me ahead of time but sometimes they won't. But having those pre-meetings. And especially if there's something that, like, something that I'm going to propose -- like in the beginning areas, my child -- wanting my child to have an intervener, like having those pre-meetings about what that means. And then there's definitely post-meetings about that particular topic. But then the other thing -- and everyone has already brought this up -- is the personal profiles or the passports. I saw a question in there about if we have a template for that. And I know there are templates out there -- and maybe others on the panel know of some. I've never used a template myself, although I wanted to share. So two things that I had in that very original passport -- I didn't call it that but little about me pages for my son, was what -- I had a photo of him in his walker at the time, so that was really important for them to see him outside of his wheelchair. But also what the vision for the future was that my husband and I had for my son. And that was, I think, eye opening for the team and important. But recently -- and this is a different transition but I think all of the transitions are kind of interwoven on some level. We had a transition for my daughter transitioning from public school to private, elementary to middle, same transition. There were some challenges happening with team and team building. And so we ended up doing a student profile that was information collected from outside -- so anyone in her life. And they each provided -- and this would be really wonderful from home to preschool, I think -- they filled out a survey of different things about Camila's likes and dislikes. It was actually compiled from an agency here in town that's an incredible agency that does person-centered plans for students. But she compiled it and it was actually this profile of all of these kind of a summary of everyone's experience of my daughter. And it was so eye opening because there were so many interwoven threads of she's like a spaceholder, and all these beautiful, incredible things that kind of the outside people seeing the strengths of my daughter. And I feel like it really helped the new team get to know her and see her with different eyes. >>Gina: Fantastic. Thank you. Also great ideas. I did put an article in the chat, knowing the child, personal passports. It's the California Deafblind Services article. It's not so much a template but explains the process. So what is something, one thing that you would like to do differently or have some thoughts around making it better, making the process better? Lauren, you want to start us this time? >>Lauren: Sure. I think it's interesting Heather brings up the junior high transition, because I've been at a lot of junior high transitions lately and I keep telling parents these are similar to the meetings I have at the three to three transitions too. There are a lot of parallels in those transition meetings and I think my thoughts of making it better or broader than our campus programs, because I sit in on a lot of these meetings and kind of think about this on a larger scope. And I really wish that every parent contacted an advocate. And I really wish that the people in their corner would push them to contact an advocate beforehand, even if they don't bring an advocate to the meeting, I think parents are so much more prepared and centered and comfortable when they have spoken with an advocate beforehand, or can have them at the meeting. I love having advocates at the meeting. I work with some administrators at some districts that immediately get prickly when an advocate is there. But in my experience they're an excellent resource to have at meetings because they really can be the person to represent family needs and also have an understanding of district perspectives and do that without being in this really important emotional parenting position. And sometimes for parents it's just impossible to separate the two, especially in a high-stakes meeting. I really wish -- and when I talk to families who are going through transition, is, hey, here are some advocates. Please reach out to them and talk through these things, even if you don't bring them to the meeting. I wish that was more standard practice at all transitions. Because like I kind of mentioned in my first thing, I feel like sometimes districts are just turning the wheels on transitions for students. They don't really know the student. They're part of like the assessment hub. And I think sometimes we end up with IEPs that do not make the most sense for a child, especially if that parent is not empowered to push the team or if they're uncomfortable, you know, pushing the team to make other decisions. That's a lot of pressure that I think we unduly put on parents. And I think sometimes the right professionals are not in the room. Like sometimes that early intervention professional is not there. Or sometimes it's not their role to advocate for what they think needs to be on the IEP. So I think that just gets messy and I think it's at the detriment of the child. >>Gina: Lauren, you have a question in the chat. Can you define what you're talking about when you say advocate. Do you mean like a formal advocate? Ones we see when something is going wrong? Or do you mean like a friend who can be an extra set of eyes and ears? >>Lauren: I think both are valuable but I'm directly thinking about a formal advocate. So like in Utah it would be someone from the Utah Parent Center, so someone trained to be an advocate in the education arena. I think having a friend there can be sometimes really useful if they have the right experience and they know what to be looking for or if you literally just need someone there to write notes for you because your executive functioning can't handle it because you're so focused on all these other things that you're doing. I think it's what works for the parent. But I was more specifically thinking about a trained advocate, parent advocate who can come and really know the ins and outs of what happens in a school district meeting. Sometimes I feel like school districts, they start talking in -- we start talking in school language and we get on a roll and it leaves parents in the dark. And if you don't have the right person there to be like, wait, you do actually have to do that, this is the law and you are beholden to these things and you will listen to me that, you know, we want to assume that all educators have the best intentions but we can't say that every team does the best by every student. I think sometimes really having someone there to hold boundaries in appropriate ways that doesn't put the parent under the line of fire can be really important, especially because these IEPs get very complex. When you're asking for an intervener, when you're asking for service times, when you're talking about placements, those are big decisions. And teams often get fatigued thinking about all these big things too. Sometimes they just need someone to be like, nope, remember, we are considering this. You do have to do this. Yes, in fact, that is FAPE. That's my opinion. >>Gina: Thank you. Jessica. >>Jessica: Yeah, I am 100% with Lauren with bringing an advocate to the IEP meeting and having worked with the school district, I offer that to our families and nobody has taken me up on that. I went to one years ago but it was kind of a tagalong meeting with another co-worker. But I did see in the district, even when our kids were going from my preschool to the district kindergarten, we would get a teacher work day or something like that to meet with the kindergarten teachers, but it was quick. It was a ten-minute meeting. Here's what we've been working on with this child, here's how he is in class and next kid. So it was kind of just this quick meeting. It was nothing like we're able to do now. And especially I think having, you know, virtual platforms at our disposal now is really important. You know, we can make these meetings happen without having to travel very far. So if a kid does go outside the district, the state, other states can reach out to us to see how the child is performing, what we saw, kind of get a better -- a bigger picture of the child because I think in the districts, like I said, it's not enough. And I never felt good sending the kids -- fully. I knew they were in good hands but I wish I would have had more time to tell you more how much fun they had playing outside in the sand and throwing it over their shoulder. It's very much like here are the goals, here's how they've been working on them. So I think having that would be helpful. But, yeah, just kind of, you know, making sure that all of the families know that we're available is something that I don't think always gets -- we don't get it across to them as much as I would like. I think, you know, with the kids being so young, there is a lot of the emotional and some trauma for parents and families, kids, everybody's having some trauma from being in the hospital or from being diagnosed or anything. So we -- repeating what we want to see done or what we're offering to families. Repetition. Because they might not hear it if they're not in the right mental state for it. >>Gina: Heather Joy, are you there? Oh, there. >>Heather: I am here. Let's see, so in those early years, I think it would have been beneficial -- so having like either a little slide show or a photo -- I've done this before but maybe not consistently, a reminder of who we're talking about. As my kids got older -- when they were younger it probably wouldn't have been realistic to have them at the meetings but it is so beneficial to have them as they've gotten older, at their own IEP meetings. So I think that's one thing. What are the other things that I was thinking about? Sorry, I'm drawing a little bit of a blank all of a sudden. I don't normally draw blanks. I might come after Maurice, if you don't mind. >>Gina: Maurice. >>Maurice: I draw blanks all the time. It's become the new normal. I'll give you strategies. So of course as a state Deafblind Project we can always do a good job of finding young children. If we don't know they're out there, we can't help the transition. We can't offer to help if we don't know who the kids are. In California, Part B is paid for through, obviously the Department of Education, and Part C services are paid through the department of developmental services, mainly through vendorrized nonprofits. And there are literally thousands of those. We're a big state. Regardless of how well connected to the state we are, the state education agency, we have to also keep our hands and fingers in all those early intervention programs around the state. And so that's always been a challenge. But some of you have already talked about a couple of things I was going to mention. I'll mention one other thing that maybe we could do a better job with and that's, as a training project, when we're working with a preschool program that's receiving a student, in our drive to be accommodating and well liked and keep people happy, we sometimes err in giving the team too much power in choosing what they think they want and need from us. And so I may have limited training opportunities with a preschool team and they may say, oh, we want a training on CHARGE syndrome. That's the most important thing. We'll do that but when you're talking about a preschooler who is Deafblind, there are some things that you just have to know. And we've already talked about bonding and trust and Jessica and Lauren you have talked about objects and name cues, calendars, all those things that have to be in place. But I'll throw out another one and that's when you're talking about a Deafblind 3-year-old, you're talking about a child who has not -- has probably had little to no access to three years of incidental learning. There are certain things that you can just assume that child understands the minute they walk in the door. And that's true of -- when you have a ninth grader coming into high school, there are certain things you just know a ninth grader probably gets, or a sixth-grader in middle school or when a kindergartener shows up in grade school, you know that there's certain things they know. But for children who are Deafblind, not related at all to cognitive impairment or intellectual disability, there's just a lot of basic concepts they're not going to have yet simply as a result of their Deafblindness. And I brought one of my favorite kids' book is the big red barn by Margaret Brown. I think about this, or good night moon, that's another good example. In preschool, the way those programs throw around things like the moon and the moon is up in the sky and barnyard animals, you know, like the cow says moo and the pig says oink and the giraffe has a long neck and the hippo has a big nose. And all these things, you know, that you just can't make the assumption that the child who is Deafblind coming in knows that. So I guess what I'm thinking is maybe, sometimes it's okay to be a little more directive. I used to joke -- I have this thing that I used to say: Sit down, shut up, listen, and do what I say because it works. You know, just be quiet and do what I say. That's my lowest points as a state Deafblind Project person. But, really, when you're moving a child into preschool, there are certain things that the preschool staff just has to understand in order for this to be successful so that the first few weeks of this preschooler's life in this new program isn't just filled besides with the chaos of not understanding what's happening and who people are, being exposed to all of these things that all the other kids or many of the other kids understand but the child who is Deafblind doesn't, because we think 85% -- if you're hearing and sighted, about 85% of everything you know you learned visually, and almost all of that was learned incidentally. So we're talking about 3-year-olds that haven't had access to three solid years of incidental learning. And preschool people just have to understand that. And that it's not related to a cognitive or intellectual disability. It's just simply a result of being Deafblind. >>Gina: Thank you. Heather Joy, did you remember or do you want us to keep going? >>Heather: I think I can riff off of that because that really sums up why it feels so vulnerable as a parent of a child who is Deafblind, going from home to preschool. It's like I knew how complex my child was and then I was sending them to this place that I didn't know these people. Luckily I did because I had that Friday program, so there was some knowing of I did trust that place. But as far as knowing what he was doing every day and then what she was doing every day at school, I never felt like there was a good amount of communication back and forth between what happened at school? Okay. I have no idea. Now they're home. Oh, she seems happy so she must have had a good day. Even like 15 years later it's just hard. But there have been times over the years where there has been different ways of communicating including having my kids have a little -- like a switch that records and them being able to hit the switch when they get home. Ways of being able to include my child -- and that might not have been realistic at 3 -- but at least having a better way of knowing what was going on. I just have -- that has been one of the hardest -- and it continues to be -- hardest parts of being the parent of two children who are Deafblind. I want to know more about what's going on in their world. Not just, oh, they went poop. They ate this. I want to know more. I know that is challenging for providers but it's important not only for me but also for my children to be able to express what's going on in the world from day-to-day. I think that's one thing to do better. >>Gina: Thank you. So important. Communication is so important. So we've heard a little bit about vulnerability for the parents and how vulnerable this is to send their 3-year-old, their little baby to this big school. What are some things that you guys are doing that prepares families for this transition so that it is positive? Jessica, you want to start us off? >>Jessica: Sure. I think at Anchor Center we've been really good about talking families through what will happen. So if they haven't done child find prior to going to kindergarten, we have people who can help them get set up with that. But I think, you know, kind of throughout the years that they're with us, and in our preschool classrooms, we do have this can have more open communication than we can in the district. The parents have my phone number. We also have an app that we use to communicate with families that we send pictures and notes through. But it's, you know, just kind of being there, talking through whatever they're going through as far as working with their new schools, whether that's indistrict or maybe a private school or something. We just maintain these relationships and built them up and we know the child so well, so I think just being there as a resource has been helpful to our families. And that passport is really helpful. >>Gina: Thank you. Lauren. >>Lauren: I think a lot of the things I've kind of touched on is conversations, pre-meetings, tours, really having parents be as prepared as possible so when they walk into the meeting it's not the first time they're hearing anything or learning anything, because no one really has the mental capacity to learn new things in an IEP meeting, especially at that transition meeting when you're making big decisions. And I would also say it's been really successful, and I wish it was more concretely practiced amongst all our early intervention providers. Some of our early intervention providers are really good at educating the parents about the education system itself before they come to us. And those parents I always feel like are a little bit more comfortable when they walk into the room and when we walk into those pre-meetings. That's just a personal style of some of the early intervention providers, but I noticed it makes a difference. >>Gina: Thank you. Heather Joy. >>Heather: When my son was making this transition, I reached out to the parent information center here in Phoenix, raising special kids, and I attended one of their IEP preparation meetings to understand this transition. That made a huge difference, maybe similar to what you're talking about. It was just -- looking back now it was just basic, which is what I needed. I didn't need to know the whole system. It was more about this process, so that made a huge, huge difference for me. >>Gina: Perfect. Maurice. >>Maurice: So advice for families. One thing that I tell families is -- and I don't mean this to sound negative. Don't turn down a service just because you think that the person who provides it is too clueless to offer anything positive to your child or the team. Sometimes a parent -- they're meeting all these new school district people and they're coming and they're doing their assessments and maybe you have a speech and language specialist who clearly doesn't know anything about Deafblindness, doesn't know about alternative communication modes and methods, and maybe they're used to doing articulation repair and things like that. And so the family will say, you know, that person, they don't get my child. They don't really know what to do with my child so we won't push for speech time. And I just think that everybody has something to offer. I always tell families we'll find something for them to do. If you have a speech person who doesn't -- is isn't able to help that much with an AAC system, then give them the job of keeping up the personal communication dictionary. Somebody has to do that. And it's hard for the preschool staff to do that. So make that the speech and language person's job. Make sure there's a personal communication dictionary, make sure it's updated all the time so that it goes with the passport and it says this is how I communicate this and this is how I communicate that. Because we know that children who are Deafblind have multimodal communication systems. They've got signs, pictures, objects, line drawings and all these things. I just say don't throw away a service just because you think that specific person doesn't have anything to offer. We'll find a role for them somehow. Get that 60 minutes a week and we'll make something of it. With a little creativity. >>Gina: Great. Thanks. One last question before we go to the audience questions and that is what strategies do you use to coach parents to advocate for specific needs for kids' needs, services. For example, an intervener. How do you coach parents to advocate for those kinds of things? Lauren, do you want to go first on this one? >>Lauren: Sure. I have this conversation a lot with parents who come to tour and are not necessarily the best fit for campus programs but are lacking something in their district placement or the team that they're working with is not responding in the ways that they need, so they're looking for other options. They come to campus and we talk it through and they're like, well, you don't seem like a good option. What can I do? My answer is typically something along the lines of you have power in your IEP meetings. Even if you feel disenfranchised, you have power and please use it. If you feel strongly about something for your child, you can say that and your team needs to respect that and there's ways to say that without it becoming antagonistic. You should practice that, because it is a delicate line, especially when you're emotional with something, to be firm about something that you believe in for your child without causing tension in your relationship with that team. You will get farther if you are still having a positive relationship with that team but you can advocate for that and you can ask for things. It's okay to ask questions. I always tell parents ask people members. Like the easiest way to ask a team member to justify a decision is to say, do you have data to represent that decision? Or please help me understand how you're making that decision. That can really open up more conversation instead of just the parents saying I still think they need an intervener or I still think they need 60 minutes of speech and language. Go with your gut but also use these couple of key phrases with people. What kind of data do you have? Tell me why you think that? What are the other options? How do you foresee my child making progress with or without this key service that you are advocating for, that you want changed? >>Gina: Nice. Thank you. Jessica. >>Jessica: Yeah, I agree. Make sure that, you know, make sure you're comfortable with the decisions that are being made and that you are also a part of the IEP team. So asking questions about the acronyms too, like we were talking about earlier. You know, what is a TSVI, what does OT mean? I lost my train of thought there. But, yeah, just being comfortable. Also if the parent wants an intervener, talking about with the team, discussing that there's also a document called determining the need for intervener that you can bring to the school team or the school team can review and it helps them get a better idea of your students' needs in relation to whether or not they need an intervener. An intervener is a one-on-one paraprofessional for Deafblind students. But they're trained -- specially trained in strategies to work with kids who are Deafblind one-on-one. So those are the biggest things I think I would say. There's also some really great modules on transition from the division of early childhood that are helpful to give to parents too to just kind of work their way through it >>Gina: That document you referred to about determining the need is in the Google Drive. >>Jessica: Okay. >>Gina: Maurice. >>Maurice: Well, thank you, Jessica for mentioning that document because that's what I would talk about too. I encourage families to use documents like that, use tools, external tools so that it's not just coming from you and your own beliefs or your own emotions, whatever. But you've used a nationally-vetted document or process that's come to this conclusion. And it's that way that when you're a preschool teacher, you know how you do things like -- you say to the kids, you know, I wish we could have more Play-Doh time but Mr. Mean clock up there says it's time to wash up and get ready for the bus. You take it off yourself and put it on the clock and you make the clock the bad guy. So you've got that really great document, determining the need for an intervener. You have the -- two of my other favorites, one comes from Texas and one comes from NCDB. So the Texas one is the IEP quality indicator's checklist and the NCDB one is the classroom observation instrument. So using the IEP quality indicators looks at an IEP to determine whether or not it has everything in it that a good IEP should have for a child who is Deafblind. And the classroom observation instrument looks at the learning environment and is it set up for a child who is Deafblind. Using tools like that and then say this is what I see in the classroom or this is what I saw when I toured, based on this, how are we going to make sure that my child has access to everything that's going on? So access in the IEP and access in the way it's reflected in the classroom environment. Being able to put it on to a tool like that and say here's what this tool suggests. Then it's not just coming from me but it's coming from, as a country we have all decided these are worthwhile effective tools. I think that's it, Gina. >>Gina: Thank you. And Heather Joy. >>Heather: I have this tool that I used. Old school. Is it old school now? But I just highlighted the heck out of this thing and when I was advocating for an intervener for my son, you know, I didn't want to go to mediation. I didn't want to do any of that and so I met directly with the -- and she ended up being one of our advocates over the years, the director of special education. We just sat together and I went through this and I went through my daughter's IEP -- well, my daughter or my son, I don't know. And asked the question similar to what you said, Maurice. Similar but maybe a little bit more specific. How will my child meet this specific goal, you know, without having an intervener. I don't know. You guys wrote the goals. It's in your hands. This is -- and then also taking the emotion out of the meeting. I think that's something that's been really important over the years for me. In the beginning maybe it was harder but really understanding that this is about what my child's needs are, not about what I think needs to happen. It's about -- I'm advocating for what needs to happen for my child but it's not about my emotional -- being emotionally wrapped up in what happens. It's tricky and it takes some skill, finesse, and experience, but it's very, very important and just every parent understanding that without you at the meeting there is not a meeting. You are a team member. You are as equally a part of the team as everyone else. I got the experience of being able to do -- have a facilitated IEP recently -- I don't know if people know about that option. It was so wonderful to have that experience because I felt like my voice was so important in that meeting and it was because there was a non-biased person facilitating the meeting and she just allowed me to -- each goal and what do you think? What do you think? It wasn't me saying I think this. It's like, what do you think? And it was just so clear in that meeting how important my voice was as a parent. The parent's voice is always, always very. >>Gina: Thank you. Okay. Let's go to the audience, and there are several questions. The first one came pretty early. And the first one was for most states, the zero to 3 programs use the teacher of the Deaf and hard of hearing and TVI from the district. Or do some have these folks on staff not connected to a district? >>Jessica: So at my school, we are not required to have IEPs for preschoolers because we are two days a week and it's halftime. We do have our own therapist on staff, so we have all therapies plus horticulture and music. I know in the district, I don't know about that. I think everybody's -- >>Gina: You think it's different? >>Jessica: Yeah. >>Lauren: I think most states though, like here in Utah, the Part C to Part B technically falls upon the districts for Child Find. I know that's different in other states but if that Child Find falls upon the LEA, the district, the assessment team is the teacher of the Deaf and hard of hearing and the TVI from there that will be doing that assessment. >>Gina: Maurice in California? >>Maurice: We have both. There are many places in California where regardless of who's funding the early intervention program, the VI services will come from the district. But we have a lot of non-public agencies that also provide those teachers and either directly because the child is being served by that agency or more and more, a lot of the big agencies like the blind children's learning center and wayfinder and blind baby's foundation or new learners, they'll contract out their TVIs and TODs to other early intervention agencies or districts. So it kind of goes in all directions. It just sort of depends on where you are in the state. >>Gina: Thank you. Do we have other questions? So somebody is asking me specifically about interveners in Colorado. We have -- Jessica, I should leave this for you. How many do we have that are trained, currently trained? >>Jessica: We have eight that are in training right now. One that's certified and two that are 98% almost certified. And what was the rest of the question? Is there more? >>Gina: Where is Colorado with training and supporting. >>Jessica: Typically they are hiring a person to be an intervener and they reach out to the Colorado Deafblind Project, and I run the intervener training program here in Colorado and we do it twice a year. We start in January and August and it's two semesters. So we'll start another one in January. I think we already have three signed up for that. They go through the training and then depending on the district, they'll be certified through the national intervener certification e-portfolio. They'll complete that. Yeah, it just depends on the districts, whether they're requiring certification. We're also working with the community intervener program. This is outside of the the school, but they are using our training program for the interveners for after school programs as well. Did I cover everything? >>Gina: I think so. >>Jessica: All right. >>Gina: Other questions? I see that Kate, somebody -- Kate put a bunch of the documents that Maurice was talking about. She has sent links for us. Thank you for that. I appreciate Heather's perspective and I also hope that parents are being made aware that their child's team is there to support them and the school district in implementing an appropriate program. Thanks for that, Kathi. >>Maurice: Gina, can I mention one thing? That applies to both sides, early intervention and preschool. >>Gina: Sure. >>Maurice: This is something I worry about -- for those of you who know me, you know I'm a worrier. I worry about both early intervention and preschool people. I worry that because their time with a child is fairly limited, say a couple of years max, that they don't have the opportunity to see the fruits of their labor. You know, they don't get a satisfactory return on their investment, I think that's the expression. So one of the roles on a Deafblind Project is just to encourage people to keep going, you know, to keep trying the strategies. We'll hear preschool teachers find out things from the early intervention program that this is what the early intervention program is doing and the preschool staff will say, well, we tried it for a month or two but it didn't really seem to work so we don't do it anymore. We say, no, no, no. Two months is nothing. This is going to take more than two months. Even if you're not getting the responses that you expect or that you get from other students you have taught because the child is Deafblind, keep going. Don't give up. Be patient because I think people in working with school-age populations, they have the opportunity to experience the thrill of those huge milestone moments or ah-ha moments that these kids have and I worry early intervention specialists and preschool teachers keep plugging away and they keep trying so hard and then the children leave and then it's like when the child is 6, all of a sudden everything starts to fall into place and the preschool teacher never gets to see that. I just worry for them and do whatever we can as educators to sort of cheer them on and to keep them motivated to keep going. >>Gina: Thank you. I do not see any other questions. Any last-minute or closing thoughts? That's a lot of information for two hours. Thank you, guys so much for your time today, both to the panelists and the participants. A great amount of information. Hopefully we'll be able to take some of this back and implement and look at some of the things we're doing and really make some changes, if that's what needs to happen, both good and bad, right? Thank you, guys so much.