;
Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
3
County and parents from both Central and Southwestern Pennsylvania were involved
in producing videos, sharing learning resources, and creating authentic learning
activities based on personal and professional experience with students who are
deafblind.
When the Pennsylvania Deaf-Blind Initiative agreed to be a state to adopt these
modules as outreach tools, we intentionally included all team members of the
educational team in our enrollment plan. Not only did this team approach fit within
the spirit of the OHOA modules themselves, we knew that for intervention to be
effective, teams needed to support each other while learning to better support their
students. From past efforts in intensive team-based training, we knew that we needed
to enrich our technical assistance by offering participants specific instruction and
resources in the areas of: planning time, resources, meaningful goals, unity of
purpose, leadership, values and trusting relationships, and interdependence. One of
the most vital lessons that we have learned is that collaborative teaming is essential in
meetings the educational needs of a student with deaf-blindness. Finally within our
year long plan that launched this summer, we have built in site visits from our project
staff, from a seasoned TVI leader in our state, and from a staff member at NCDB.
The 6 teams that began the "Open Hands/Open Access" Intervener training at
the Low Incidence Conference ranged from 4 members to a team of 8 members. This
included Special Education Directors, Teachers of the Visually Impaired, Teachers of
the Deaf Hard of Hearing, Interveners, and Paras in the role of Interveners,
Classroom Teachers, and OT's, PTs, Life Skill Support Teacher, SPL, Personal Care
43
