EHDI Conference
Why Reinvent the Wheel? Open Discussion for Cross‑State Collaboration for Early Intervention Coordinators and Providers
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  Improving Early Intervention Services through Cross‑State Collaboration
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Holistic Early Intervention for African DHH Child: Tales and Transformative Practices  
1:55 ‑ 3:35 pm MT
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This text, document, or file is based on live transcription. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.  This text, document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law.
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(Captions provided by a live Captioner.)
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>> Hello, everybody. Thank you for coming, and joining us to talk about why reinvent the wheel. This is really going to be a brief presentation and then really an open discussion about cross‑state collaboration and early intervention. I'm Amy Spencer, by trade a speech language pathologist and teacher of the Deaf and currently the early intervention and family services coordinator at the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. 
>> Awesome, I am Ashley Renslow, Early Education Coordinator at the School for the Deaf and the Blind in Colorado through outreach programs and interimly the Director of are outreach, hopefully short‑term interim. Today we're going to take you through a couple of things and we hope that throughout this quick 25 minutes you'll have a shared knowledge of some networking opportunities in early intervention that you'll learn the benefits overall, 30 foot‑foot‑view of cross‑state collaborations for shared resources and general collaboration of events and opportunities and that will you be able to engage in some discussion today that might lead to some next steps for what that could look like for cross‑state collaboration for you. 
>> How this started I included a picture of how this started actually, was really just a conversation and a quick, oh, wait, you're doing that? I want to know more about that. Let's have dinner and talk about it. The dipper led to the next day maybe coffee and trading phone numbers, emails back and forth and really just kind of sharing some resources and ideas, really we're kind of alone in early intervention, right, so not everybody speaks our language and its really nice to have somebody to bounce ideas off that does speak your language around early intervention. Also just thinking you know we kind of keep doing things, we're very busy people so we keep moving forward doing things how we're doing it but maybe there's a better way. Maybe there is is a more efficient way, maybe there's something that would work in your state that works in somebody else's state, but you just haven't thought about it, because you've been so busy doing the daily grind that it doesn't come up. So cross‑state collaborations that have already been happening besides Colorado and Maine is Maine and New Hampshire have done some Sky High Deaf mentor trainings together, we've shared resources. 
>> If you want to know about Wyoming and Colorado, stay for the next session, and more recently with Colorado and Arizona, Colorado with a contract through our early intervention department or EI Colorado with the Department of early childhood, statewide OEE, otoacoustic emissions in our state and that led to some conversations with Arizona who would love to have the same kind of thing for continuous screening and what that might look like. You will be able to scan a QR Code at the end of this and fill that out. Otherwise come see us and get your name on the list. We'd love for you to join the list to see about networking opportunities and how we can continue the discussion what have states are doing, where your needs are, where your strengths are and how we can support each other as we continue to provide services for our families. 
>> I kind of already started to talk about this, but just the benefits I think that we've both seen benefits on both sides of sharing information sharing our thoughts and some of our processes and protocols that you don't have to reinvent. If somebody else has a great rendition, tweak it and make it more state‑specific. That benefited us. Also being able to reach out to other states that maybe have someone in a can provide a training for your state about a specific topic because you know New Mexico has a great Deaf mentor program. What does that look like, how do they get the funding, all those question we might not know there is an avenue to go to that might work in your state. 
>> I'll just add to the benefits, because what we've not talked about is the personal relationship that we've also developed from the time getting to know each other and spend time together, so appetizer sharing and tasting of wines and all the things that come along when you spend a lot of time networking and collaborating with someone. It becomes a personal relationship as well so there are benefits to getting to know people personally and really understanding their perspective, where they're coming from and have more vulnerable transparent conversation. Last point professionally build a more unified and comprehensive approach nationwide. Working on that with the states and across the nation and what that can look like. So we are going to really spend the next 20 minutes of our time engaging with you all and giving you the opportunity to talk. We'll run around with the mic. What strengths does your state have that can be shared with this group. Have you had experienced with cross‑state collaboration? What did that look like, successes and challenges. What is your state or your program maybe seeking that another state may have developed or been working on? And what ideas do you have for how we can nationally unify to be more efficient in developing EI programming. So we're going to leave these up and we're going to have some open discussion with what you all are doing, what are you needing and what that might look like. So we'll run around with the microphone. 
>> I'm going to take notes. If you'll say your name and where you're from, that will be helpful, too, so we did have a roundtable ancillary meeting yesterday with really fruitful discussion between early intervention coordinators and leaders in the field and so we got a lot of really good information about people's gaps and people's strengths and the needs and with want to take that together and develop themes and reach out to people that we could have a panel discussion about Howe these are really strong states in sharing language and communication opportunities or something. We want to have a panel discussion about that and these are some people that said that's a struggle for us to get that statewide. So I'm going to take some notes to make sure we keep you guys on the list, too. 
>> Hi, my name is Toni Shagreene from Decatur, Alabama. I wanted to know from other states what services that you provide that we currently aren't providing or I guess a norm throughout, in other states and my other thing was, how can we have the parents and families be more interactive and more engaged in understanding the process and helping them be a little bit more part of the system and what that looks like I guess across the state. I want to know from other states, is that something you guys struggle with, parents feeling kind of left behind especially after that transition into school. 
>> This is Ashley. We're looking at something that maybe other states are doing that's a little bit unique in the services or what they might be providing and then coming alongside parents or engaging parents so they're up and getting what they need and not feeling so left behind. If your state feels like hey, we got this or we're struggling with that, too, now is your time to share. Right here in the blue and then the back. Microphone is coming. Microphone for the captioners. 
>> So we're from Toronto, Canada. One of the ways we engage our parents is we run kind of like a six‑week in‑person or virtual infant hearing program overview, we go over funding, education support, drop‑in programs, free early on programs, developmental milestones where you can look for answers, so we kind of get them right at identification so it's really nice, newborns and turns into a baby play group, too. We ask families what do they want to know so we tailor it each round. I'll let my co‑worker jump in. 
>> Sure, hi, everyone. I'm Mel, a social worker. I don't know if this is helpful or valuable, because we have completely different systems with different funding bodies and so when families come to us, it's free of charge and we have them until their babies are of and they can come and go. We offer these workshops and nobody's paying so I know it's a little bit governor. But yeah, we found this has been successful. We know from other presentations that families really are only taking in like 15% of what they're being told that their audiology appointments and all that, so giving them the opportunity to come meet other parents. There's often common feelings of like I feel like I'm missing something or should I be doing something right now. We cover everything from that to how to keep hearing aids on a grabby baby that wants to put them in their mouth. We found that helpful and it's helping us better, yes, and it's helping us better understand the needs of our families and where the gaps are in the system, so I don't know how helpful that is. We also had guest speakers come in from different like hearing solution technology distributors and manufacturers and answer all their questions over like six weeks so they can kind of process it a little slower and then come back and say actually dissociated for that whole session. I don't remember anything. Can you break it down for me again and we have the opportunity to do that. If anyone's clinic has the capacity to do something like that, it's been super successful for us. 
>> I really like that idea, just thinking about myself as a mom with a newborn baby, right, like having people come into your home might be more overwhelming but having the opportunity my baby is eating but I'm watching this, I'm sort of here but it's not, you know, necessarily like coming into my home but also consistent so they know when to expect it. That's great. Did we have someone else in the back? 
>> So I'm Kristie from New Mexico. So in terms of our state services, we, our early intervention program under New Mexico School for the Deaf has a state‑level memorandum of understanding with the entity that oversees Part C and also with newborn hearing screening so we're seeing as part of both of those systems we have agreements about referrals and all of that. We then help families get into early intervention services with a local EI agency and our support. We are statewide. We do services in the home in a really rural state so we go birth up to age 6, under Part C zero to 3 and the School for the Deaf supports us same model 3 to 6. Our program works with families whose children have any degree of permanent hearing loss so a wider range of families than you might typically see on campus at the School for the Deaf, we see communication in all modes and in all combinations, so we've got some statewide agreements in place that embed us. I've been in other states where the early intervention for Deaf and hard of hearing were seen as outside of the system, doesn't work so as well. We have Deaf developmental special services, over half of our staff is deaf, 88% get services from hearing provides and 90% from deaf, so there's overlap, they can get both for all six years. We're able to figure out how to bill Medicaid for our Deaf developmental specialists who are all Deaf mentor trained and so we have worked in terms of lots of collaboration. We're seen as, we do OAE screening training for all of the EI agencies as part of their annual evaluation process. We also do OAE hearing screening trainings for all of the Head Starts, not all but many of the Head Starts including the ones on Pueblos and in Native land. So we've been able to create a system. We had an early intervention program for 43 years. We've been able to create a system that is embedded at all levels of the early intervention system at the state level, as a local provider, I'm a family service coordinator and developmental specialist and regional supervisor providing support to the agencies in my region. I'm also the assistant director, so I have some statewide stuff. Lots of hats, but again, that collaboration at every single level means that EI agencies are very comfortable calling us just for consultation or for services. 
>> I know many of us have many hats and sometimes that can feel overwhelming. I also think there's a benefit to having many different hats. You see from all different angles what's happening in the system. Just putting that out there, too. You want to go to the next one? Okay, one more. Two more. 
>> I forgot one more thing. This is Kristie again from New Mexico. We also have parents embedded in every level of our system. So our director is a parent of both hearing and Deaf children, our regional supervisors, two out of five are also parents, many of our developmental specialists are also parents. We have a developmental specialist who is Navajo, one who comes from the Pueblos so we're able to match the culture, one who works in the southern part of the state who is originally from Mexico and also knows Mexican sign language and so then in our office staff our data person is also the hands and voices person for New Mexico, so we have parents at every single level and so that helps us in terms of parent involvement and engagement as we're creating activities as we're thinking through the systems. We have parent voices, they're wearing multiple hats but it's parent voices as well. 
>> While she comes up here, New Mexico is going to be the state that you're going to want to collaborate with. Don't mean to put Kristie on the spot. 
>> I'm from Indiana and the Center of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education under the Health Department and we have the same goal as, I'm sorry? We're in the same hall as EHDI, and we collaborate all the time and we follow up with questions and one thing that's worked really well for us for our state is we're involved in the intake process for Part C, and so when we get the DAE from EHDI, that's sent to us and we send it to Part C, and Part C is really great because they are involved in the intake process, and then we go and we explain our role and what we can offer as the PA and the Deaf mentor program and then spoken language and auditory services and so we go to that meeting and we explain all the services, because they don't know what our services are statewide. Perhaps they don't know. There are so many people that don't know. We take advantage of that and we noticed an increase in referrals back once starting this program. That's been very successful in Indiana. 
>> Great, thank you so much for sharing. I'm curious if there's anyone in the room who has some experience with cross‑state collaboration and what that might have looked like, what were some of your successes and/or challenges with that. Stay for the next session because you're going to hear a success story! How about some, how ideas that you have for how we can nationally unify to be more efficient as a collective EI group to serve our families better with programming or ideas of what that might look like. 
>> I'm Annette from Wyoming, and one thing that we've started to do that Ashley has set up is quarterly Deaf and Hard of Hearing coordinator meetings. We've only had a couple but they're virtual and several states joined on. I know New Mexico has been on and in Wyoming early intervention has been going on as long as it's been going on, but we've really been initiating a more specialized program for our young children who are Deaf/hard of hearing and so being able to join this coordinator group has allowed me to hear from other folks who are very seasoned, who have 43 years of a program or 50 years in Colorado and just being able to take suggestions and see how can we incorporate that into Wyoming which of course is a very rural, low population state, so I feel if you have the opportunity to join the quarterly meetings and share what's working well, I've learned so much. One of the things that is a success, I don't know if you were at the presentation this morning with Christina Blazer and she talked about her Tuesdays at 10:00, that's something that's been shared and that's a way that in Idaho they're bringing parents together weekly. We thought in Wyoming, why can't we do that? We started a similar program, we call it first and third, every other Tuesday and we haven't sure if we'd be successful, how do you measure that? Will parents show up to something new but again we're a rural state and everybody's so isolated. I think it was our third meeting we had nine families that had joined us. You never know. It may start really slow and we may have slow meetings where only one family shows up but we know it's a need. Collaboration and learning what other states are doing is amazing. I would encourage a lot of that. 
>> I would be curious, there are oftentimes a lot of resources that I've seen, the state has this resource and that state has that resource. Are there specific resources that one, you're seeking that someone in this room may go oh, we have something similar, and you all can connect or is there something that your state has where you go or your program, I say state and I mean state or program, has that goes, we have this and it is phenomenal and we love it, we'd be happy to share that, curious specifically related to resources. 
>> My name is Obiona. I'm from Nevada. And I'm the Executive Director ‑‑ is it better if I stand, sorry, so people can see me. Sorry. My name is Obiona. I'm the Executive Director for Nevada Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. So I'm here really representing that group and I've been invited by Nevada Hands and Voices, so I'm curious really like how close you are to interacting with your Commission, if you are close in interacting with the Commission, how you go about do that, what resources do you train. What do you do with your Commission locally. New Mexico does a lot. I know you've mentioned that, that's great, but I'm curious if any other states, what do you do in your situation? 
>> I will start with Colorado. Our Commission is a co‑PI, private investigator for our HRSA grant. The Commission and the Department of early childhood together hold our HRSA grant. They often, the HRSA, yeah, the EHDI grant, um‑hum. And so send some coffee. Where was he going? He's often involved in the work and monthly meetings that we have and work groups and focus groups. That's one way, starting to engage more over the last four years and definitely over the next five with what it looks like statewide for continuing with the Commission as one of the PIs for our grant. Engagement with your commission and your state. Head nodes, maybe some not. 
>> If there's no New Mexico, what do you do? 
>> Thank you. That is a really good question. I think that I would refer you to Director of my program, Joanne Corwin. We hook up families for resources and equipment and things like that. We hook agencies up to the Commission for accessing and contracting with interpreters. I am not sure in New Mexico the Commission's enrolled in our HRSA grant. I'm embarrassed to say that. I will be finding that out right now. At the family and agency level the Commission and School for the Deaf have a lot of collaboration together as well and I'll be texting to figure out the rest. Also I did want to say we benefitted from cross‑state collaboration throughout the western states with western regional early intervention conference and co‑training along with Colorado, being involved with grants with Colorado and so there's a big support network within these western states, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and there's a lot of collaboration between those. So regional, I think setting up regional kinds of things, we do a conference together every two years, so I see that model also going bigger and bigger nationally and being involved in other national efforts. At the same time I didn't want to be like oh, no, we have it all. We are always looking for resources. We are always looking for programs for doing something innovative that maybe we can learn from, so we are always learning. 
>> Absolutely. Well yes, change numbers, you probably will not have time to fill this out right now. It is not a quick two‑minute. It does take time for you to fill out and engage so save it, let us know. If you want to come share your email, we can write it down and email this to you as well. Thank you all so much for coming and we'd love to connect with you around the conference. 

 

 
 
  Improving Early Intervention Services Through Cross‑State Collaboration 
2:25 p.m. 

>> I'm the same presenter. You get me twice in a row if you're staying and I'm really sorry or you're welcome. I don't know, however you want to look at it. It is a different presentation, so if you're staying, the last one was kind of a 30,000‑foot overview of the benefits with some open dialogue. This one is going to be a specific example of some collaboration between Colorado and Wyoming and what that's thank looks like. So you'll kind of get a sense for that. You get me but you don't get just me. You get my two other lovely copresenters so if you're new, Ashley Renslow, Early Education Coordinator for the outreach programs at the School for the Deaf and the Blind here in Colorado. 
>> I'm Sarah Fitzgerald, one of the coordinators of the Wyoming EHDI program. 
>> I'm Annette Landes, the Wyoming Early Intervention Initiative plus coordinator, we just call it WEII, so you'll hear that a lot today, WEII plus. So just as we go through today, you'll learn some ideas to establish professional connections with EI programs in neighboring states or even other states, and then some specific opportunities you may want to consider and also some ways to measure the effectiveness of the cross‑state collaboration. So just briefly how we started, in Wyoming, we've had the opportunity over the years to collaborate with Colorado in different ways, most recently in kind of related to our collaborations that we're going to talk about today, Wyoming had the opportunity to work with the Marion Downs Center in Colorado in developing the Wyoming Early Intervention Initiative or WEII as Annette mentioned and been part of the shared reading program through the Colorado School for the Deaf and the blind. 
>> And one of the great things is that we've been able to share resources between our states. So again, as Ashley talked about in the last session, it's really important to kind of know what your other states have available, and Colorado has an amazing family resource manual, and they were willing and lovely, graciousness to share it with Wyoming, where we could adapt it and make it our family resource manual, so that was a great collaboration, and then in my previous work, I was a co‑Hear in Colorado and through that relationship, I had a CHIP facilitator named Susan who also worked in Wyoming. Through that relationship, we were able then to bring even more resources up to Wyoming, and it evolved into again relationships where I could go to Ashley and say we're really wanting to develop a more specialized approach of intervention for our infants and toddlers who are Deaf, hovering, can Colorado help us, and Ashley said, take whatever you need. And so it was that relationship and being able to take from a great program like CHIP and bringing many of its components to Wyoming really has ensured a well‑developed program, so again, you'll continue to hear just building those relationships and reaching out and connecting with people. And so when we thought about why are we doing this, I mean it's fun to collaborate with people you like, but it's also important to understand the why of what we're doing, and it really is the JCIH goal number three, the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing and goal number 3 as you probably all know is all children who are Deaf, hard of hearing from birth to 3 years of age and their families will have EI providers with the professional qualifications and core knowledge and skills to optimize the child's development and the child and family well‑being. Isn't that what we want for our families? We wanted to say how can we ensure that our providers working with this population, with these families do have those skills and how can we share resources to make that available, not only for Wyoming, but obviously for Colorado as well. Today is a blueprint if you want to establish that kind of relationship across state, we hope this information will help you kind of know how you reach out, what are the steps that have to be in place to make hose things happen. 
>> You get a little time to reflect and think on your own or write down or take your notes, in your state, do you have a state school? Where is that? Have you reached out to them? Do you have relationship? Are there any kind of quarterly networking meetings that are happening that you can jump into? Who are the professionals or the team members in your own state that you can start building relationship with? What is the proximity of those supports or relationships and I'm going to stay in Colorado and Kansas, it is sometimes a little bit closer for those on the western border of Kansas to come over into Colorado or down in that southern part of the state with New Mexico, where you have a lot of families that go across the border, Colorado, New Mexico, in the southwest corner so be thinking about proximity of professionals. It may be a little bit more beneficial for the family and providers in that area to reach across state lines for some of the resources and connections versus a family driving six hours to a different part of the state and is there specialized service and where is that located and how can you make connections with those families or those professionals to support those families. 
>> As we were developing this presentation, we were talking about how important it is that we are working together, because when we're doing this all by ourselves, it doesn't feel quite as successful. When we do it together we do so much more. I see what's happening in Wyoming through the sharing of your resources and talents. I'm a testament, I think folks here from Wyoming can agree that we are really appreciative of Colorado, of Idaho, of all of the different agencies that have been helping us, and I want to tell you this, and I will talk about this later, Wyoming also some really good resources, too, so the sharing doesn't always go one way. Sometimes it may sound like that because Wyoming we have this new approach but we also have amazing resources that we're available to share back. As you hear this, you may think I need this, this and this. What do I also have that I can share out to other places. 
>> I am going to jump in. I don't know if I'm supposed to start or end this slide but Annette mentioned that Wyoming utilized our CHIP parent family resource to create theirs. Colorado has now pulled together a group of invested partners to come together and look at a cohesive resource for Colorado and we brought that manual that Wyoming created back and are using some of the things in there to go we really like this. What about this? Here say one‑pager. Could we do this differently? There is back‑and‑forth sharing so I throw that out. But some of the things after you establish connections, some of the opportunities that you can think about are the sharing of resources, some states have, well every state has amazing professionals. What does another state have that maybe has a little bit of a skilled specific passion or knowledge, you can invite them as a presenter for a training, and have a collaborative training. Resources and manuals, which we've talked about, and then I'm going to let Annette talk about their specific programs. 
>> So in the last presentation, I had mentioned Idaho's Tuesdays at 10:00 and how Wyoming had learned about that and it was something that we wanted to do, and so we've evolved into Wyoming's first and thirds and so again, that was a kind of, I don't want to say a random conversation but kind of a random connection and we learned about that and took off with it. I could have the states wrong, but I believe New Hampshire may have started something similar because of those Deaf/hard of hearing collaboration meetings that are happening quarterly. I talked about what Wyoming was doing, and then on the call they're like wow, we could do that, too and so again, just that collaboration and getting together to share those ideas has been so fruitful. 
>> So this is just kind of a quick step, guide by guide, step by step guide, two sessions is a lot, for the process that we looked at for cross‑state collaboration. So identifying and connecting with those neighboring states, maybe it's not a neighboring state. Maybe it's a state way up in Maine that you have dinner with and you say hey, like what you got, but who is that? What is that neighboring state that you're going to partner with? Identify the professionals or the resources that you have to offer or maybe that they have to offer that you can share. Gather a needs survey. Is there a need in your state? Is there a need from your families or from your professionals? What is that need and is there another state that is doing the workshop or providing the training or has that expertise or that skills you can bring in. Use the needs data to plan something specific, an event, what could that be and gather the feedback and see where you go next with that. Kind of overview, you can use this for anything you want to plan or provide or train. We'll talk to you specifically about what that looked like for us. 
>> The topics you see are part of a survey we sent out to the Wyoming early interventionists, the WEII plus facilitators who work specifically with the children who are Deaf or hard of hearing and we asked the providers to rank the importance of these items 1 through 12 and went through that, found what seemed to be the most pressing need. We also had an other for people to add in, but for recent specific things, providers were interested in incorporating coaching so we went back to Colorado with that information and it ended up being something that they needed as well for their providers and so that worked really well as we selected that as a topic for our training. 
>> So we're going to talk a little bit then how did that all come together and what were our roles in establishing this cross‑state collaboration. I think this was either our second or third time that we had partnered with Colorado for a training, but we're highlighting this one to kind of give you an idea, if you want to start planning, what does that look like, and so like Sarah said, out of our survey, family coaching was the number one desired training from our providers, and as we talked about it, we said, well, we need to know how adults learn, and so we added in a second component of adult learning characteristics for that day training, and so once we established our topics, we started to brainstorm who do we know that could present on these topics, and so we started to throw out names, and I see one of our presenters here, and so once we decided, so that was kind of our August meeting. Now we're planning for kind of a mid fall training date, so this is when we started in August. So we had our topic. We were identifying potential speakers. We were looking at potential dates, and then we started to assign tasks for our small committee that's working on this cross‑collaboration training. So then we decided let's get back together late August/early September and see where we are. Then we had a speaker confirmation by then. We had a date confirmation. We knew how much the speakers wanted to be paid for that. We determined who was going to pay. So again, here's the nice thing. When you are going cross‑state, so you have these other agencies involved, you might have more money to be able to kind of spread across to make these trainings happen. What we've been able to do is provide these trainings without any cost to our providers, and that's super important that our providers can get contact hours, and they're not having to pay to come. And we determined the training platform. It's going to be virtual, what are we going to use, and recording preferences. Is the speaker okay if we record, to be able to use later for facilitators who couldn't attend to watch, and then we had another meeting in September, where everything is confirmed with the speakers. We create the "save the date" if there's any logistics, paperwork, invoice, that kind of thing, we secured our interpreters and created the post training survey, because that's super important for us to know if we're successful. 
>> From there we mach a registration link, identify the structure, are we going to have breakout rooms during the lunch time for each state to provide updates, are we going to give people full 30 minutes for lunch, and distribute our registration information, constantly sharing that flyer. We do share it across state lines and had people from New Mexico join, Utah, so open really to what that looks like, right before our training we get together and make sure we have our Zoom, all the logistics, who is providing the announcements, what that might look like, making sure we share PowerPoints and doing everything for a successful training, are all of the last‑minute details taken care of and then we do the training. You blink and it's over. You make sure you're sharing the PowerPoint, if you've done give‑aways, we have the last few trainings, random drawings, we make sure we have what we need to send those out, disseminate the survey, really important, so we know where to go next, what are continuing needs? How was this? Was it successful or not? And then once that training's over, we did a follow‑up, got any invoices we need to, send out the certificates to the participants, made sure they got their give‑aways because when you win, you want to get it. We did our survey results and looked at what was positive, what went well and what might we need to change next time. The first time that we did this, we gave an hour for lunch with a 30‑minute breakout and they loved having that opportunity. This time I think we did a 30‑minute, quick breakout. They were like we need our lunch. We to see what is going to work and how do we keep modifying and now we're are ready to plan the next one. There is no spring one because we came here so it will be next fall. 
>> I want to add that this is a process and the first time that Wyoming reached out to Colorado to see if we could join something they had already planned, there wasn't a lot of Wyoming involvement, and I think we had one provider who came to that training virtually. And once Wyoming really became an active and equal partner in the training, that participation, that value of what we are trying to do really increased and so at our last training, I think we had 12 facilitators from our state, which maybe for some of you in the bigger states, that doesn't seem like a lot. That's a lot more Wyoming, and so it was a real big success for us, and so it's just that involvement. It's that dedication and so I think that the more the people who are doing the planning get that message out of how important these trainings are and that we're collaborating and working together that you will see more and more involvement with your providers in your state and it just energizes you to do more. 
>> Thank you, Ashley. Okay, so one of the most important things is, are we successful? Is what we are doing making a difference? If it's not, then what do we need to change so that we are making the difference. Again, back to our JCIH goal number three. Are our providers being better trained to provide the necessary intervention for this specialized population. And so one of the unique things we were able to do in Wyoming is we secured a grant that helped support some of the training pieces. All of a sudden this grant came across our table and we're like let's do it and let's put in family coaching and we were awarded this grant and what we were able to do with that is after the coaching, we were able to continue one‑on‑one mentoring with our coaching presenter with our facilitators, so she continues to meet one on one with the folks who came to the training to continue to develop their skills, because we know how it is. We go to a conference, we go to a training. We get pretty excited about new things that we're learning, and we go back and we might be doing it, and then we kind of fall into our patterns again into our comfortable habits, and so what we did is we did a pre‑survey in Wyoming on coaching, on the principles of coaching to get an idea of how our facilitators, how much knowledge they had, and then we will do a post survey, when they finish with this one‑on‑one mentoring to see the increase. That's where we'll be able to measure in Wyoming if we're successful, and then the progress monitoring. If our language outcomes continue to grow and look better, I think we can say it's because our providers are better at family coaching, that they're better at knowing how to implement the best strategies for our families of young children who are Deaf, hard of hearing, and then we're also doing parent surveys. Are parents learning the information that they need so that they are really their child's first learner. Teacher. Yes. 
>> So we want to go back to our three objectives and tie that all in, that you'll identify three ways to establish professional connections, so looking at joining the DHH coordinator networking, if you've not done that, hit me up, I'll get you connected. Connecting with maybe your state school for the Deaf and programs they have or other professionals or programs in or around your state or neighboring state. What are three maybe cross‑state collaboration opportunities you could think of, trainings,  sharing resources, parent programs for event and how can you measure the effectiveness of cross‑state collaboration? Looking at pre and post survey trainings, following language outcomes and doing parent surveys so tying all that in and wrapping that up, we have about three minutes for questions. I think as Janet de George said this morning, if there are no questions you covered it fully. Awesome. We'll be up here if you want to take a few minutes and ask questions. Otherwise, thank you so much. We'll get you out of here a few minutes early so you can be the first at the break refreshment snack bar! Thank you guys for coming. 

 

 

Holistic Early Intervention for the African Deaf/Hard of Hearing Child: Tales and Transformative Practices 
3:10 p.m. 
 
>> Hello, my name is Julia. I'm your room Monday store for this session. This is the holistic early intervention for the African Deaf/hard of hearing child: Tales and transformative practices. Welcome. This is Bernice Adekeye. A reminder, there's exits on both sides here. Thank you. 
>> Hello, everyone. Hopefully the conference has been good for everyone, you've been learning a lot. This is a short 25‑minute presentation. You've been introduced to the topic but I'm going to now do it in sign language instead of just in spoken language, Holistic Early Intervention for the African Deaf Child and I am from Africa, but specifically from Nigeria. I am Nigerian and my name is Bernice. I am a Ph.D. student at Gallaudet University majoring in Deaf Ed and I have a passion for early childhood education going back to doing this in Nigeria. My other presenter who is unfortunately not here, from the College of Education, will from Nigeria is involved with supporting Nigerian families for early childhood education. I have no financial disclosures and no financial support for this presentation. I want to let you know that I am not going to present the entire time. You guys are going to be a part of this presentation using a QR Code to participate. So I'll give you a moment to read this slide. So you've seen the topic and we're talking about, you think of a tale. What tale can you think of, something that's fun that you play with, you know, so here one author says that storytelling is so powerful as a tool for research and understanding about people and understanding that story, and you know, there's oppression that's happening and there's empowerment that's happening and figuring out how to make that change and how approach that, and that's really where the oppression is coming from and how my presentation is entitled in that. Here is information regarding some content if you'll please read the screen. So a little bit more background information about me. So ECE, early childhood education and what does this look like in Nigeria, just in general. Here's a picture of it. So there's a national policy for the integration of education in Nigeria, and this is some research from Salami 2016 and describes what the early education policy is for Nigerian children and what are those goals. It's not just a single goal. There is a multifaceted goal for touching many different parts of life ‑‑ cognitive, physical, emotional, behavior and having school readiness. So once the child has graduated out of ECE, they have an expectation to be ready for life to start school as well as many other behaviors. So ECE really is a valuable time and it's important for children to make sure that they gain what they should and not just come out of it subpar. In Nigeria there's three groups, there's zero to 2 and that's called the day care group, Creche, and then ages 2 to 4 is kindergarten and 4 to 5 is preschool. So zero to 4 years old, that program is not run by the government. But instead, they're assigned to private businesses to run that. And those are those private business owners, meaning honestly, anybody can set up and create their own private business to educate those zero to 4‑year‑olds; however, the government expects by the time they're 4 and enter the preschool program 4 to 5 they're learning what's necessary to get into the curriculum by age 5, which is run by the government and run by the government schools. And they administer all of those. So in Salami 2016, it was documented that most of the ECE activities in Nigeria that were run, are run by private businesses have varying curriculums, varying practices and there isn't a standard policy or standards of any sort; however, you have to pay for tuition and the cost of this is varies. Some wealthy have a very expensive education opportunities for the zero to 4, and those that don't have the financial resources have limited programs because there is no government support for these programs. So there is a national policy and it talks about certain categories of children who are required to have special services and because they can't be a part of general education and the general education doesn't support them. And that includes those children with hearing loss and Deaf children. The government has said that Deaf children need to have special early childhood education. There are specific details ‑‑ there are not specific details about what that means, just that they need to have special programs. So then the problem is the government isn't taking action and the responsibility for what's being identified as a problem and how to alleviate that. So Deaf education in Nigeria, people believe it started in 1960 with the efforts of Dr. Andrew Foster. However, before Dr. Foster came to Nigeria, there were groups of people who called themselves the Friends of Deaf and that was 1956, they started this initiative. You know, they gathered Deaf children and gave them an opportunity to learn, and then their efforts became that first school in Lagos State. After four years there, and Dr. Foster arriving in Nigeria, they actually started the first Deaf School and that's what you're seeing here, this tree is showing that foundation of the education and impacting many different children in many different areas. We have a growing and this driving Deaf community and Deaf education opportunities. Many of these people have jobs. They have opportunities to leave Nigeria and to get education in other countries. So education, technology, science, all of these things have an opportunity for children in Nigeria. This next picture here, what do you think, what do you see here? Deaf education has certain things, but then you see there's an X here for these younger children, because Deaf education doesn't have an early childhood education in Nigeria. There isn't a policy for it. There are varying needs. So in Asonye et al in 2018, Deaf children don't start getting taught until age 6. They might need it before that but there isn't an opportunity for them because there isn't a school that is there. They aren't able to access until they're of. There's no education, support, no policy, no early hearing screening, there's no EHDI there; there is nothing, and therein lies the problem. So you see the QR Code on the screen. If you could take a picture of the QR Code, I'll wait just a minute for you to do that. Okay, everybody's got the QR Code, yes? Let me get out of the way. Okay. This will open to Facebook and then about three or four years ago, I started collecting stories from Deaf people in Nigeria, and I was posting their stories on a weekly basis. I have about 40 stories here, so if you open Facebook, you can read through those stories. During this project, I was trying to encourage parents of Deaf children in Nigeria to say, look, you know, there are successful Deaf people, and look at these stories. This can now inspire these new parents of Deaf children from maybe their working class or leaders in the community to have opportunities for their children and to be able to uplift and enlighten the opportunities of their children that are coming up. So these 40 stories, I tried to analyze them for this presentation and looking at how many of you think that there was ‑‑ how many of you feel like there should be Deaf education for zero to 5 in Nigeria? And if you look in here, only a small percentage said yes, there should be. 2.5%, that means most people in Nigeria who are successful, they did not have access to early childhood education. Remember that previous picture I showed you, you don't start primary school until you're six. Zero to 5 there is nothing for these children. There's a gap for these younger aged children. So the schoolchildren that I worked with, I was trying to understand their stories. So the first child here, this child was born deaf. At about 6 months, they still had not been identified, so somewhere between 6 months to 2 years old, they finally realized, oh, this child is deaf, but the parent doesn't accept the fact that they're deaf because the parent is traumatized by the fact that their child is deaf. So between that zero to 2 age group, there is language deprivation because the child has not been identified and not been exposed to any inclusive language. Parents at home just talking to their child, look, look, look, talk, talk, talk but no exposure to the language that the child is understanding. From a child that's 1 to 4 years old, maybe they're getting a hearing aid or speech therapy. But you're not putting a 2 to 4‑year‑old in a dorm, but if they tried to do that, the purposes for speech therapy and to learn from them, but they found that it's not been successful, so they put them into preschool, that is government supported at age 4 and they're signing exact English. That's what they're utilizing in school is signed exact English. If you look at child 2, the parent got hearing aids for the child, they went to a Deaf school, living at home, utilizing sign exact English, the parents were using sign exact English but still struggling because sign exact English is not a natural language for deaf children. If you compare all of the stories that I've had, these 40 stories, and published on the Facebook story I have as well as other places, you can see that there's a gap and you can read here this 5‑year‑old gap. Okay, so the early childhood education in Nigeria for children that are deaf they have the tendency to have language degrade indication. You look at their Paul and Wang model. You see the ven diagram, affects the cog anything, the effective factors, the social factors, all of that is interacted because of home and school having that exposure to the children for having language opportunity, and so the constructs that they're ‑‑ so most of them, they don't have their L1 but trying to get an L2, and so what's happening is these kids are getting an L2, which is the spoken language or Signed Exact English instead of having an L1 and that's messing up their language opportunities. Zero to 5 is a critical age and deaf children in Nigeria are suffering because of the lack of education during that time. They don't have enough exposure to the language. For deaf children, when they have that developmental delay, it's already been identified. Okay, so I've explained to you what the problem is. I've explained to you the impact. We're here together. We need to think about what we can change and what are those solutions for Nigerian children and how do we support those deaf Nigerian children. Let's answer, this everybody take a picture of the QR Code and answer the question. Alright, please fill out the form that you see with this QR Code. I see some answers populating here. I'll give you about two more minutes. Alright, one minute. Everybody get your answers in. Ready? So I've come up with a few things that I thought would be a solution. Maybe changing what ‑‑ just kind of changing what policies are, newborn screening and detection for identification, socio‑cultural language intervention, which is not signed English. It has to be bilingual approach, where children are learning their native sign language, starting at birth. It's family centered intervention curriculum, so you know, the first member of this child's family and their household needs to have that involvement. It can't just happen once they turn 6 and they go to school. That's too late. It has to happen and there has to have a way to bring this education and this language into their homes at an earlier age. And early intervention policy, if individuals are trying to change the policy, they're struggling to work against the policy, so why not change the policy and the government policy and provide more support for early intervention for success of our children in Nigeria. And then bilingual teacher training for early Deaf educators. Nigeria still uses special education because they're utilizing that deficit approach for these children, for Deaf education. So there really needs to be an opportunity to change that cultural model where they're using the bilingual approach, teaching and learning. Does anybody have any questions? 
>> First of all, I remember you from last year in Cincinnati, so I am very proud to see you here this year advocating on behalf of your native, your country. My question is, at what point are you planning on completing your degree and are you actually going to be one of those persons that's going to go back to Nigeria and start early intervention program for the children there and how difficult is that going to be as it relates to breaking down some of the governmental mindsets towards Deaf and hard of hearing children, from zero to five in Nigeria. 
>> Thank you, that's a great question. There's been a lot of work that needs to be done. We have a system in place, but you just, we need to have ideas of how to change that, but then there are certain places where there are no systems in place whatsoever. And so my Ph.D. and my dissertation is regarding those intervention policies, building relationships with the communities, with family, with professionals, working with medical profession as well, and that's where I'm focusing my dissertation. So I do want to make changes. Also, working with the United Nations Foundation in D.C. and trying to build an international partnership in order to support me. I have mentors who are already working in other countries. The person is a U.S. citizen but has the opportunity to travel into many other countries and work there. She's been to Egypt. They set up the Deaf bilingual program in Egypt and this person is supporting me as well to help with what I can do to overcome all of the barriers and I will let you know, this is not going to be my first time doing national projects in Nigeria. Prior to coming to the United States for my Ph.D. I worked with the Deaf community. I did a pioneer project with a Deaf cohort of young college students, and it was the Deaf literary competition, where I worked with many different states as well as the capital to do different projects and we've done this twice now, and so already having that experience, I now want to utilize that experience to enhance this project to reach out to the prime ministers. I've also, now being a part of Gallaudet with that in mind, I realized that I can and I will make the change in Nigeria. Any other questions, in the back? 
>> Does Nigeria have any other type of non‑profit organizations that you can get involved in to fill in those gaps that provide different resources and services for the deaf and hard of hearing children aged zero to 5? That are not getting the services currently? 
>> Sorry, hang on, you'll have say that again with the light. 
>> Does Nigeria have any non‑profit organizations that can really support your research? You know what I mean? 
>> Okay, uhm, Nigeria has lots of non‑profit organizations, and there's the NNAD, the National Association of the Deaf in Nigeria, and so I have partnered with them, and my personal NGO working with them, opening, having different projects that I've done in Nigeria, the Luminous Deaf School Initiative and there are lots of NGOs in Nigeria that are looking to support these types of goals, so yes, some are focused on education, some are focused on health, some are focused on women. Their focus is varied. Thank you. 
>> As you were presenting, I had an idea and maybe I'm wrong but the government, it seems to be more at this point worthless and I feel there's still a lot of work to be done with the government for them to have a role in this through some collaborative effort so that means that you can really look at empowering and fortifying different organizations or reaching out to different organizations and showing them the current situation and asking if they'd mind coming to the table and showing and explaining to them about the different gaps and the things that need to be, where attention needs to be applied to. I'm from Iraq, and there's definitely a lack of governmental support for the people, who are the children. There's a lot of just passive leadership and not really a lot of involvement and they learn language at a later age and the war going on and financial aspects and poverty, so many layers. We need to pull them to the table and explain to them, not let them run things from a bird's‑eye view. That's something frustrating and we've been struggling with the non‑profits. We need more help, more power, we need more attention to these different issues and matters. 
>> The NGOs can't do everything at a national project level. It has to involve the government, especially in Nigeria. The office, hmm, the Office of Special Adviser of Disabilities, that was a breakthrough for us in Nigeria. I think we've only had that five years it's been set up, so working with them and the government. The government is always opposed to everything that's being suggested. If you really want to make an impact, you have to start somewhere though, and starting with more evidence‑based to show the government why this works. One of the publications I think it was on the first page of my slide, you see the year here, this is 2015, and then the next one was not until 2018. Both of these have published that early childhood education for Deaf children is non‑existent in Nigeria and this was in 2015. This has been nine years and it's still, nine years ago they said they needed this, but there's been no change. They've published it. They said look, there's no early childhood for Nigeria, but nothing's happened. I'd think that something would happen and change, but the status is still the same as it's been. So we're continuing to do, and have action, have pragmatic action. Are there any other questions? Well thank you all for being here. Thank you so much for coming and for listening.