VIDBE-Q Volume 65 Issue 1
partners who had adopted and were cultivating the model (Zambone &
Alsop, 2009).
In 2011, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) directed
the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness to develop recommendations
for improving intervener services in the United States. After systematic
engagement with the community, a review of relevant documents,
structured focus groups, interviews, and surveys, a set of
recommendations was published that was meant to provide guidance to
community partners including state deafblind projects, family organizations,
universities, and advocates (NCDB, 2012). One of the key
recommendations centered on the development of an open-access
multimedia set of modules that could be used to design comprehensive
intervener training programs or used in pieces to provide greater equity and
access for rural and remote communities to support the practice of
intervention. Over the course of five years, 27 multimedia modules were
developed using a highly participatory approach that involved cycle of
development, field-testing, refinement, revision and release for state and
university adoption (Parker, et. al, 2017). Since their release, a national
certification system has also been developed to recognize interveners who
