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March 2008 TAESE Newsletter 9 |
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OSEP Centers Dealing with Deaf/Hard of Hearing
By: Janey Henkel, Program Specialists, TAESE
PEPNet
The Postsecondary Education Programs Network (PEPNet) of regional centers provides resources, information, inservice training, and expertise to enhance educational opportunities for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families. PEPNet's national outreach is coordinated through its four regional centers. At the local level, each State’s contact person is the gateway to the shared knowledge and best practices of the four regions. The PEPNet centers work collaboratively to provide a broad variety of best practices and resources where and when they are needed to enhance educational opportunities for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
PEPNet now provides services that support a student who is deaf or hard of hearing to transition from high school to advanced educational programs, colleges and universities, and other training programs. The group of stakeholders to which PEPNet provides resources has been expanded to include secondary education staff, students, and parents. These stakeholders are in addition to the stakeholders previously served, which included postsecondary institutions, vocational rehabilitation, and community agency personnel. PEPNet's regional centers have changed their names to emphasize the shared identity within PEPNet and the ongoing collaboration and coordination of activities and services. The four regional centers are as follows:
- PEPNet—Midwest at Saint Paul College
- PEPNet—Northeast at Rochester Institute of Technology
- PEPNet—South at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- PEPNet—West at California State University, Northridge
The PEPNet regional centers are supported by the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).
For more information, visit the regional centers’ websites:
NCDB
The National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) is a national technical assistance and dissemination center for children and youth who are deaf-blind. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), NCDB builds on the technical assistance activities of NTAC, the information services and dissemination activities of DB-LINK, and adds a third focus related to personnel training. NCDB brings together the resources of three agencies with long histories of expertise in the field of deaf-blindness; the Teaching Research Institute (TRI) at Western Oregon University, the Helen Keller National Center (HKNC), and the Hilton/Perkins Program at Perkins School for the Blind. NCDB works collaboratively with families, federal, State and local agencies to provide technical assistance, information, and personnel training.
The consortium focuses on two major purposes as required by OSEP. The first is to promote academic achievement and results for children and youth (from birth to age 26) who are deaf-blind, through technical assistance, model demonstration, and information dissemination activities that are supported by evidence-based practices. Activities are directed toward families, service providers, State deaf-blind projects, State and local education agencies, and other organizations responsible for providing early intervention, education, and transition services. The second purpose is to assist in addressing State-identified needs for highly qualified personnel who have the necessary skills and knowledge to serve children and youth who are deaf-blind.
According to Gail Leslie, Coordinator of Information Services and Dissemination, NCDB works directly with each State's deaf-blind project to assist them in their efforts to build the capacity of State and local agencies to meet the needs of students who are deaf-blind. NCDB also has a number of national activities geared towards assisting families in advocating for and understanding the needs of their child who is deaf-blind.
Ms. Leslie went on to say that requests for information can be made by families, teachers, educational specialists, doctors or attorneys, and those requests will be forwarded to an Information Specialist. The library at NCDB contains 8,000 items, with a selection of materials written in Spanish. Packets of information are tailored to meet the individual request.
An additional service of NCBD deals with personnel issues. National personnel training professionals are brought together to collaborate in addressing the issue of highly qualified staff and the shortage of personnel in the area of special education, particularly in the low incidence areas.
For more information, visit their website at http://www.nationaldb.org or call: (800) 438-9376
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 30 March 2008 )
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