VIDBE-Q Volume 67 Issue 4
but also have a thorough grasp of the role of an intervener, and they perceive
interveners as necessary for their child's development and learning.
Parental Exhaustion
Woven throughout the responses is a theme of parent exhaustion caused by
raising and advocating for a child with deafblindness, as well as by the frustration
of working with an IEP team who does not understand the unique needs of their
child.
Resources
Many respondents express their high regard for the knowledge and skills that
state deafblind project staff bring to their local education teams. These projects
tend to be a lifeline for families, since most educational teams do not understand
deafblindness and the supports that are needed by children who are deafblind in
order to access educational environments. Parents list a host of resources related to
interveners that are helpful to them. These include their state deafblind project, the
National Intervener & Advocate Association website, Interveners and
Deafblindness Facebook Page, the National Family Association for Deaf-Blind
(NFADB), the National Center on Deafblindness(NCDB), and their state's Parent
Training and Information Center. Several parents state they have received
intervener training through the university training programs or the Open Hands,
Open Access (OHOA) modules.
