Event ID: 2391326
Event Started: 7/9/2014 11:49:42 AM ET
Please stand by for realtime captions.
Good morning, all. It's 9:00. We'll wait another minute or so. We notice that there is a buzzing, and we are trying to figure out what to do with it. Robbin, why don't you go ahead and try the universal mute again?
All right.
Okay. So that ended the buzz. Right?
Yes.
Good. So don't hesitate again, Robyn, if it's just us three, to redo it. Make sense?
Yes.
All right. We are at 61. Should we wait a couple minutes? How do you want to do this?
People know that --
9:00. Good. Robbin, let me begin by checking in with you. Are there any prelims that you need to cover before we role?
I want to let people know that this meeting is going to be recorded, so it will be public record. For who knows how long. So don't share anything confidential that you don't want to be recorded. And let me get that recording started.
This meeting is now being recorded.
All right. Again, star 62 mute. And star six to unmute your phone. And I think we're ready to go.
Good. Robbin, thank you very much. And thank you to all of you. And good morning. First, I'd like to give a special shout outs to our friends from who i.e., where despite our best efforts, to set up a time -- from Hawaii, ended up for a number of reasons being at this extraordinary our in that part of the country. So who i.e., --, -- Hawaii, very much appreciated and apologies from our end. I'd like to welcome you all. The purpose of this webinar is to set the table for what we are anticipating will be a very exciting and productive day on J uly 20, when again we have the privilege of gathering together face to face in DC. I know that for me, after 20 years of doing this, the excitement is present. And I think in large measure for m e, that's based on having had the opportunity to work with a planning committee and our facilitators to be quite taken by the level of passion, the level of productivity, the quality, just what an active network we have. During the next 90 minutes, we'll begin by Jay offering a context and overview of the summit. And then you're going to hear briefly from members of our 12 facilitator teams about content targeted for discussion during their concurrent sessions. Concurrent sessions while in some cases have materials and information presented during the first 10 minutes on July 20, are primarily dedicated opportunities for dialogue and from the beginning it was clear to us that this wish for dialogue constituted a key piece of what this summit needed to be about. If you have comments or questions, please use the chat pod as I can see you are already doing. While it's unlikely that we will pause to respond during this very tight 90 minutes, we will do what we need to move the information forward. And of course, if we need to respond to something, immediately, we will. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Jay. All yours.
Great. Thank you, John. Am I on the line? Can you hear me?
You are and you are clear.
Great. Thank you. I also want to extend my thanks to everybody for joining us. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jay Gense, the director of NCDB. And I too want to acknowledge Hawaii. I'm so sorry, I promise that this will not be the norm, relative to scheduling of videoconference meetings. It's just insane that we're asking you to join us at 6:00 a.m. I apologize. I know that we have a couple at least of the OSP project officers online, so thank you, particularly to JuCo -- JoAnn McCann, our project officer. We are always rightful that you can take the time to join us. Thank you as always for your ongoing support. We may want to do a universal mute again, Robbin. Now we've got several that have joined us again. Do we want to take a moment to do that and then we will unmute and continue forward?
So this is the third year for which a premeeting videoconference has been scheduled in order to set the stage for the Live Meeting in Washington, DC. Again this year, that Live Meeting will occur in less than two weeks. It's for Sunday, July 20. I know that these virtual meetings take some valuable time during what is always a really busy time for everybody, but I do think that the fact that we can have these p re-meetings via an Adobe Connect videoconference really helps us to hit the ground running when we're actually gathered life. We can get a lot accomplished now knowing that our lives time is so limited. And we want to make sure that that time is spent on content, rather than set up. As John mentioned, the purpose for today is set up. This is particularly true this year as you will soon here, because the agenda really does require you to be making some choices throughout the day about how you will participate and how you will have some options to participate afterwards. So in setting the stage for this 2014 deaf-blind summit, I want to highlight and noticed the name change, deaf-blind summit, rather than the previously used term, deaf-blind PDM, project directors meeting. The move to the summit verbiage was purposeful. A summit, by definition, is a meeting that brings together leadership in an effort to collaboratively address common issues. When we were putting together our proposal to continue to serve as the national center last summer, we all remember about a year ago when we were all feverishly writing, we proposed to host an annual deaf-blind summit in an effort to engage the deaf-blind project network in planning and implementation of aligned strategies of technical assistance. And we are very excited that we are now embarking on this first deaf-blind summit during this five-year cycle. To begin this deaf-blind summit set up conversation, I want to highlight the fact that this new five-year cycle does come with some newly articulated guidance from our funder, from OSEP. You all will recall that in February, OSP disseminated a memo to the state and multistate deaf-blind products -- projects as the national center. It was short but it was powerful in articulating OSEP's hopes as well as expectations for the newly funded national deaf-blind TA network. I'm not. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this message today, but I do want to highlight and make sure that we understand some of the important tenets of OSEP's charge. And that message, they identified that their perspective of the national deaf-blind TA network has continued to evolve as they begin to better understand the benefits of a more collaborative national system of TA delivery. In that message, they expressed their belief that through an enhanced integration of efforts to provide technical assistance and training to all of those that serve children who are deaf-blind, that by doing that, there will be expanded access to needed expertise and information and resources, that there will be increased quality of technical assistance across the nation, that there will be easier access to high-quality technical assistance, importantly that there will be a reduction in duplication of effort and ultimately, all of that will lead to improved outcomes for kids and families. So that's an important thing. And I'm going to spend even a little bit of time on it when we're together on the 20th. It's important that this message has been articulated by OSEP. And know that this charge very much drove the planning for the DB summit this year. The planning committee, which we will formally identify and acknowledge when we're together on the 20th, worked very hard. And we had numerous gatherings to think carefully about that message. And to subsequently identify how the day can best be crafted to help us to continue in our evolution in -- in becoming a more integrated, aligned network of projects. So know that that's how the foundation for this agenda was crafted. When we first started meeting with the planning committee, we knew immediately that the right people were at the table. They were not -- I know there will be some of you chuckling. They were not shy in identifying what they wanted the data look l ike, what they hoped would be the outcome, and importantly, what they did not want to spend the day d oing. It was great. It was exactly the kind of thinking that we needed. So as we thought together more deeply about these points, fairly quickly we came to some consistent themes for what they really ought to be. They identified that there was a need. They have more time interacting and being with colleagues. They, interestingly -- I found this interesting, they identified that the time together when we're live and in person together should not focus on building single or limited content knowledge. Certainly mindful that content knowledge is and always will be critical for our work, so we're not negating the importance but they recognize that there now are weighs other than in live meetings to obtain that deep content knowledge. That is a significant paradigm shift over the past say, four years because that really used to be how time was spent when we gathered live. They also identified that any focus on targeted common issues really needed to be approached from a network perspective that we identify how we can work together to address common challenges as well as identify what's working so that that good work can be replicated. They also said a few things that I really appreciated and very much, we did we've into the agenda. One was that we needed the opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge all that's good and fine in our network. We are strong, we are here and we really need to take the opportunity to step back and acknowledge that. We also need to have the opportunity to welcome formally, the many new faces that we have in the network. So in a nutshell, the time at deaf-blind summit, they were saying really should focus on building collaboration and building relationships. So the agenda really does bring all these points together. So let's talk about what the day will look like. After some brief opening comments and foundational information sharing, in the spirit of building collaboration possibilities, we will have the opportunity to recognize and briefly hear from the many new people who have joined the network in this new funding cycle. Interestingly -- Robbin and I were looking at these data, over 20 percent of the people that are coming this year are new. We have about 108 registered and well over 20 are new to the n etwork. That absolutely is a first for us, for those of us who've been doing this a long time. We are experiencing the change that we all knew was coming. And it absolutely is at our door. And so we want to take some time to the -- allow the new people to introduce themselves, learn about what they're hoping to gain from our work together, learn what they bring to the table. And we're doing this at the beginning to encourage everybody for the rest of the time together and certainly through the entire PDM, the three days that we're in DC, to reach out to the new people. We know ultimately, collaboration is about relationships. And we want to make sure that we're doing what we can to foster those relationships as we move forward. Following these introductions and for the majority of the rest of our time together, for the remainder of the day on the 20th, everybody will have the opportunity as John was just briefly describing, to participate in these smaller facilitated breakout sessions. Know that while each breakout is crafted to address a specific topic area of mutual interest, the facilitation brings a focus to each session working with your colleagues to identify strategies that can help us to work together to address common challenges as well as identify the quality work that is already being implemented, that we can appropriately replicate. This very much aligns with the charge that OSEP has given the network, the state and multistate projects and us as the national center. During each of three, 75 minute blocks of time, there will be four different concurrent breakout sessions. One of these blocks of time will be before lunch. I want to say it is -- looking at the schedule, from 10:15 until 11:30. We will then break for lunch again as was true last year, might have even been true the year before. We are not allowed to use public funds to purchase lunch for everybody. So we will be breaking for lunch and lunch will be on your own, so be prepared for that. We will break for lunch and then come back from lunch and have two more, 75 minute blocks of time. During each one of these blocks, there will be four concurrent sessions. We have many individuals from within the network who have agreed to facilitate these respective sessions in a moment. We'll be hearing from each one of them so that you know what to expect and that you can use this information to make your decisions about what to attend. So summarizing this big picture agenda, again, four concurrent sessions. During three blocks of time. You will be choosing one session for each block. So in essence, three sessions out of 12 will be what you will like -- attend. However, you do not need to feel like you're going to miss out on all of the sessions that you don't attend. To bring conformity to the discussions and to the sessions themselves, we will be using like a template and a set of identified questions to guide each session. Detailed notes of the sessions along with summaries of the dialogue and the discussions and suggestions that will be coming from these sessions will be moved to a new group space that Gail Leslie has created on our website. In a minute I'm going to turn this over to Dale to provide more information about that. It's really important to know that you're not missing out on sessions that you can't attend. We understand that you need to be making choices, but that's the value of working virtually. So know that all materials and notes will be moved to the appropriate group space. Everybody will be choosing one session for each three, but the group space will be the mechanism that we will use to ensure that the information and the content from all of these sessions is available afterwards. We will be making full use of our new website and the many tools that are now available that support collaboration and dialogue across the network. Gail, with that, let me turn this over to you to talk a bit about the group space on our national DB.org website so people know what to expect.
Thanks, Jay. Good morning, everybody. Robbin, can I go ahead and just -- there we go. We decided that it would be nice to use the group feature of the website to function as a sort of collection hub for our Sunday meeting. So it's a group space. You find it in connections under initiative groups. It's here, the bottom of the page, DB Summit. And currently, it houses all the information that we've collected so far. Homepage has a listing of the concurrent sessions. You can find the current agenda in the materials section. Agenda. And if you still need to register, all of that information is there. And each of the sessions, we asked everybody, as a pre-meeting effort, to send bulleted points. People did a lot of work. Some people added photos, builds charts. So all of that information related to the sessions is here. In the wiki pages. And then we'll use these same wiki pages to post meeting notes and follow-up. So everybody will be able to come here and at least check out the information that's created as a result of these sessions. It's a public group. You don't -- as a member of the site or even somebody not connected -- if you don't have a profile, you're still able to look at this information. If you're interested in editing the wiki, adding to the wiki, posting in the forum, you do need to create a profile -- sorry, you need to join the group on the home page. There's a join group button here. For you, not for me, because I'm already in the group. Sorry. So all you need to do is join if you want to contribute. This is a good place if you're interested. If you have questions or ideas or suggestions leading up to the summit, use the forum space. If you want this to show up again, also in your notification, you need to be a member of the group. So join up.
Great. Thanks, Gail. This really will be a valuable t ool. And it speaks to the use of virtual tools to be able to continue our work together. So please do take the time to check out that group space. I strongly encourage you to join that group so that you can actually have more capability to participate more fully. With that, I'm going to turn this back to John, who will be working with each of our facilitators, the 12 -- of the 12 sessions who are going to spend a very brief time providing a little bit more information about these respective breakout sessions again. So that you all can be thinking about and informing you're thinking about what you will be attending as well as you -- how will the -- how you will participate because you are going to be somewhere else. With that, John, let me turn that to you.
Thank you very much, Jay. Robbin, I think we can post the grid when you are ready. And you are ready. So there are 12 sessions as Jay mentioned. You'll notice there are three periods. 1015 two 11:30, 1:00 to to 15:00 and 2:30 to 3:45. What we're going to do on this call is go across each time block and ask each facilitator group -- in some cases, it will be a one individual speaking. In some cases several, all within a rigid three-minute period to identify what -- your job I guess, as participants at this point in this call, is to listen to the facilitators today and consider which sessions you might be interested in attending. No, as Jay said, that with NCDB, note takers in every session and a commitment by NCDB to place session content first in the new -- newly created group space and later into other virtual venues for ongoing dialogue, you will be able to benefit from sessions that you don't physically attend. I'll begin -- I'm going to go across. I'm going to go horizontally across each time period. So presenters, you're able to know that roughly -- when it will be your turn. We'll start in a minute with early identification and referral. Facilitator teams will have three minutes to highlight each session's focus and intent. I will do something subtle like three or if it goes too much further, a more clear gesture, three minutes will be the period of time that each group will have, if you have as I mentioned earlier, if you have comments or questions, use the chat pod. And we will follow-up as needed. All right? So I think at this point, I will start with the early identification and referral piece. And whoever is presenting, if you would like to start six yourselves and unmute --
This is Barbara. I'm ready.
Welcome, Barbara. Please go ahead.
This is Barb purpose. I am the team lead for early identification and referral. Our early identification referral initiative. I'm thinking most of you probably know that although I'm looking forward to meeting those of you who are new. During the 10 minutes that we have at the very beginning of our session, we will be updating folks primarily about the kinds of technical assistance that has been going on in the states so that they can -- you can find out what different states have been doing. We'll also be telling you about some work or group activity that has been going on. We have a couple small workgroups that are working on early identification and referral efforts as well. And we're very excited that we'll be able to give you a little sneak peek at some new resources that have been developed by these workgroups. In the power and one hour plus we hope that we'll have for d iscussion, we will be talking a little bit more about what's been happening and offering some results of our efforts to date so that you can know more about what has happened as a result of result of the efforts that states have been taking. And then we're going to spend quite a bit of time talking about our future directions and charging where we want to go from here. There will be -- there are going to be transitions in our project as people know but there also -- there will be some transition in this initiative as I will be retiring later this year, the end of September. And so we want to be sure that we have a really clear plan and vision for where this work will go under new leadership. So we're going to really be looking for people to help us with that. We have some questions. Tanni Anthony and I will be c o-facilitating. I think that maybe the most important question that we're going to be asking and getting your help answering is, how can we as a network make sure that early intervention providers have the training and the resources they need to support children and families after they've been identified and referred to state deaf-blind projects? Throughout our work we've known that it's great to identify children earlier and get them referred to our projects, but the looming question has always been, once those children are identified and referred, will the intervention providers have what they need to support those children and their families? It might be that you'll be helping us add another I to our name, early identification and referral initiative might get another I added to it for intervention. So I hope you'll join us. I hope we'll have a nice mix of states involved in efforts as well as people ready to help us move things to the next stage. Thank you so much.
Barb, thank you very much. Thank you. Moving ahead, to the right, building network neurons. Again, let me just say that these topics, these titles, very much reflective of what our planning committee and our various ways of going about ascertaining what's timely, what's emerging, particularly in year one of this new cycle, what's relevant? So building network neurons. You are on.
This is Gail Leslie again. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm with NCDB in the Oregon office. As the title might suggest, this is a session about connections. About building connections, about nurturing the ways with -- that we want to connect and what we think we might want to connect around. Part of this is driven by things that have come out of the initial work that's been done by the network engagement technical workgroup. And so this session at PDM is just an opportunity to have a conversation about what we talked about when we talk about things like integration of effort. Collaboration. Engagement. Deaf-blind TA network. We use a variety of terms, but what do we really want them to mean? Katie and I are focusing on these three P's. And the first P is people. The IDEA partnership and their recent 2014 publication talked about -- the title of the publication is building authentic and -- authentic engagement. There was a glaring statement for me. They state that relationships are undervalued as a strategic r esource. And I think those of us in deaf-blindness know that we have a really strong history of relationships, but what do we want to do to preserve those, what do we want to build into our relationships that enhances the collective impact of work? Do we have all of the right in our relationship loop? How do we want to cultivate new leadership within the field? The second P is practical. When Katie and I -- Katie Humes is co-facilitating. She's on vacation, so I'm going to freely take her name in vain here -- she's not on the webinar -- we were talking about practical aspects. She said, let's build the network we want. So part of what we want to do here in this session is just talk about the practical things that as a technical assistance network, technical assistance network, we can build in that makes us more efficient. How are we willing to work t ogether? Are there practicalities that we can identify to create something that's more simple to deal with our common challenges? And the last P is possibilities. Projects are different in workscope, in FTD, and in resource. Sometimes at the beginning of a five-year cycle, we're busy gearing up and we're not looking too far down the road, so why bother to plan for the future? But part of what Katie and I wanted to do was build a little bit of a vision opportunity in this. What will you be describing as the DB TA network in its value and our proposals in 2018?
Thank you, Gail.
Okay.
Moving to the right, transition. You'll see I'm going to start identifying the names. Mike Fagbemi, Toni Hollingsworth, Susie Morgan, transition. You are on. Transition? Mike, Suzy, Tony?oni? Who is on?
This is Suzy.
You got it, Suzy. Three minutes.
Hi, everybody. This is Suzy from the New York State -- state project. I can't really see you all but you know what I mean. So we have a couple things about transition. The one that I would speak to specifically is a pilot project that I had designed about two years ago that was lovingly coined the interdisciplinary transition team initiative. We have to have an acronym for everything. So the ITTI is an academic year-long initiative based on educational teams for transition age young adults. It is book ended with a face-to-face training upfront for teams to build from awareness raising around best practices and transition planning, and then we guide them along throughout the year through web-based meetings. Obviously through Adobe and things like that, providing content specific to transition components, to the -- help this team and family and student along. And then the tail end, we wrap it up with a last face-to-face session to look at where we are and how the student has progressed. So this is based on a pilot that I had designed for New York State a couple years ago. And this go round, when we rewrote, we opened it up to our -- to our colleagues here. So many states joined in. We have 12 different projects we worked together in MOU, to work to the lab -- collaborative easy -- collaboratively on this initiative. This first year has been the planning stage, what is this idea of this sort of year-long initiative? Where the components -- what does it look like? The time together in DC will be able to walk you through this whole concept of the ITTI, what are some anticipated outcomes? What are -- what do you need to do or why has this been successful? And how you could also replicate it in your own state. So I'd love to talk more about it but we are limited here. Toni asked me to speak for her because she's rushing from another work placement. So they also have an MOU that went in that is also collaborative of another group of southeastern states.
Suzy, thank you.
You got it.
I'll give you one more sentence.
Toni's initiative is on the southeastern states. They have an issue that's broader than that -- it includes specifics around transition but specific activities like a weekend-based activity. And there's is broader. So she'll be speaking to that.
Thank you. Moving to the right. Professional development. Cyral Miller and Teresa Coonts are the facilitators.
Good morning. This is Teresa Coonts. Hello, I know we've done a lot of planning on the road, so thank you for all of this. I'm basically -- we're basically going to facilitate a discussion about your professional development model that all of us do in this grant. And we would like for you to come prepared to share with us what is working best in your models of professional development that you're currently doing. Another bullet point that we want to discuss with you and -- I want you to think about -- is described any of the challenges or issues that you may have first within your state or your region, specific to professional development. And then our third bullet that we're going to talk about because at the beginning, there was a lot of discussion about how we're going to network and build our network stronger and better, than we currently are, is how can the national network including all of us together expand your efforts or support in any future collaboration opportunities? How can that look and how can we expand those efforts so that we're not duplicating services but we're making sure that there's equal access throughout the whole nation and not just one particular state or regional level? Then our fourth and final bullet is how then can the national network including all of us utilize network engagement and collaboration to address any of those previous challenges that we talked about? In a nutshell, I think I covered it less than three minutes. We hope that you'll come to professional development.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Moving to the next time block, 1:00 to 2:15, you will notice that there are again the four sessions. Let's begin with intervener services, the two facilitators are Peggy and Julie.
Hi. This is Peggy Malloy from NCDB. And this session on NCD be's intervener services initiative will be hosted by Julie and by Julie anti, facilitated by us. And the purpose of this initiative is to improve and expand the infrastructure for these services throughout the US. NCDB's workscope over the past two years and also as outlined for the current five-year grant cycle is based on the recommendations to improve intervener services that OSEP asked NCDB to develop. And these were published in 2012. There are 10 recommendations organized into four goals. And Julie and I thought that for this discussion it would be interesting to focus on the first two recommendations. They relate to goal one, which is to increase recognition and appropriate use of intervener services. Recommendation one involves providing information and tools to early intervention and educational services agencies that would help them understand and use intervener services and recommendation two involves informing and influencing policy and practice. So the discussion will begin with an overview of initiative activities that have taken place so far with respect to these two recommendations. And then this will be followed by a group discussion of three topics. The first one is current efforts by state deaf-blind project to promote policies and practices that support the provision of intervener's as well as challenges that have been encountered in carrying out these efforts. The second topic is important intervener topical issues that are relevant to the network as a whole. And the purpose of identifying these would be to guide future product development and coordination of outreach efforts. And then the third discussion point would be as a result of the information that's generated in the first two discussion points, will summarize the activities and needs that are common across states and set some initial next steps for network collaboration. So if you're planning on attending the session, you might want to familiarize yourself with recommendations one and two before hand, and I'll put the URL in the chat box. They're not too long but if you don't have time, we will also be reviewing them briefly at the beginning of the session so not a problem. And thank you.
Thank you, Peggy. Next, moving to the right, intensive TA. The facilitators are Kathy McNulty and Jerry Petroff.
Thanks, John. Are you there? I think you may have muted, Kathy.
Can you hear me now? Sorry.
No worries. My name is Kathy McNulty and I work in the NCDB office in New York. And Jerry Petroff and I will be facilitating a discussion on intensive TA. Jerry is in Bangkok, Thailand right now doing I guess a different type of TA right now. But he will be joining us for sure on summit day. What we've decided to do since all of us have to deliver intensive TA and mandated in our priority and in our application, we thought we would put together a series of questions that might help tease out some of our shared issues, c oncerns, or confusion around intensive TA. So I think first first up, the first question is, how do we define it? What is it? We have the OSEP definition, but I think we need a discussion. Are we all interpreting that in the same way? And secondarily, do we as a network need a consensus on our interpretation? And if the answer to that is yes, how might we do that? When you look into OSEP's definition, it talks about examples of change. It mentions outcomes. It uses the word sustained. It's a sustained TA activity. So Jerry and I thought it would be useful for a group discussion. So when we're out there doing this, when we're out doing our intensive TA, what are those specific changes that we're looking to achieve? What are the outcomes? What are the outcomes level that we're targeting and specifically saying, we want to go for this outcome and we think intensive TA will help get us there? That, I think, will he does naturally into a discussion. What is our individual -- our respective intensive TA look like? Are there common characteristics? Are their descriptors that we can generate and help one another to really craft a deeper understanding of what these activities are all about? OSEP says they should be p urposeful, planned, series of activities. So I think it might be helpful for us to dig a little deeper into what that really looks like in our day-to-day life in delivering this level of TA. I think also of certainly not last but not least, how do we determine when do we engage in this level of TA? How often can we do it? Do we have the personnel, the resources, everything that's involved to maintain and operationalize them? What can that selection process look like? How do we determine that? We'd be very, very interested in engaging you all in that conversation and having you help us arrive at some meaningful answers. And we certainly want to determine if you'd be willing or if you see the need to continue this conversation, if you think it would be important to the work that you're doing. So I'm hoping to see you on that Sunday.
Thank you, Kathy. Literacy? Nancy Steele, Annette Carey the facilitators.
Did one of you just come on? Nancy or Annette Carey? I'm here, John. I thought Nancy was going to do it. I think we had a miscommunication there. I will just talk a little bit about what we hope to accomplish during our facilitator discussion and look for your hand signs that ISO enjoy when you start giving them.
[Laughter]
For those of you who may be new to the project, we began work many years ago on a comprehensive literacy website for children with deaf-blindness. This was a direct outgrowth for request from state projects that they would like a comprehensive site with all of the best practices for literacy for this population. That has been for the most part completed with the understanding that this is a leave it -- living breathing website. To that end, we're going to be doing several things one of which is going to be exploring that website, how best to have it for our people to access and to make use of it. The second thing is to talk with the group and get their ideas and have a conversation about the professional development component that we are creating. We are having ready-made training materials on literacy that can be a one day, half day, two-day or 3-day training. These trainings will be -- have all the training materials, the PowerPoints, the activities, everything involved along with the identified OPI that would be the expected outgrowth ones that activity is completed. So we need help at input and hopefully some guidance from the states on how they want it. The third thing we're going to be doing is requesting for videos. We want a clearinghouse of really good comprehensive videos that state projects can go to. This is basically hopefully will be used as a one-stop shop in terms of literacy, in terms of accessing the general curriculum and the common core standards and other standards that states have on the areas of literacy. So that's where we are with that. And we look forward to having a conversation with you guys and hopefully deciding how best to package this, roll it out and to get your input. And I did it within my three minutes because I don't see any hand signs.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Initial deaf-blind professional licensure. The last one you'll see in the 1:00 to 2:15 slot. That's Chris Montgomery and Linda McDowell. You are on.
You'll need to unmute. Did one of you just unmute?
John, can you hear me?
Yes, Chris. Go ahead.
Having trouble on this end with the unmuting feature here.
That's just fine.
This is Chris Montgomery from the Texas deaf-blind project. And what Linda and I hope to do is really start out with a little bit of history of what has come before with trying to gain licensure or a professional position for future of the deaf-blind. Things like the Helen Keller fellows and other programs that have come before catch the group up to speed. And then also look at what's happening now. As somebody else mentioned, there's some small workgroups I guess you would say that are doing some projects, CDC is doing some stuff and we just want to catch everybody up with kind of what's happening right now. Hopefully that's going to lead to lots of discussion and some of the points that we hope to talk about are initial training for deaf-blind professionals in your state, what might be able to lead to licensure and then in addition to that, are there options for a TA-based approach in lieu of a professional licensure just to get sort of boots on the ground right now? Another thing that we hope to talk about is what's been done before, that has worked and might provide solutions for the future. Again, leading to a licensed deaf-blind professional. Third bullet point is what was done and still needs to be done looking for licensure within your state, so we're kind of looking for holes. What's been done, what hasn't been done, and where are the holes, how can we fill them I guess moving forward? What has happened now in your state to provide a model for systematically and effectively using deaf-blind trained professionals in the state? That might be also how they fit with other professionals like a teacher of the visually impaired or an AIA professional. How do these things kind of fit together and work together? What would be the job description so to speak? Fifth, we have six bullet points, y'all, so overachievers here. Fifth bullet would be, what model would provide the best solutions for astigmatic and effective use of a deaf-blind trained professional in your state? And the sixth bullet point is I wonder if my state's going their resources, a model that can be developed nationally? These would be things that are currently -- some of them being worked on like position paper, open source University curriculum possibly, and on and on. I didn't even see three fingers up, so I think I'm good.
Chris, thank you. Moving now to the third time block, of these concurrent facilitated sessions, which really as you can see, it's a packed day and lots of ways -- in lots of ways, 2:30 to 3:45 block. The first one is the intervener training and modules session that's facilitated by Amy Parker and Leslie Buchanan. You are on.
Hi, everybody. This is Amy Parker in the NCDB Oregon office. I want to thank Leslie Buchanan, my partner out of Utah. Welcome everybody. Think of it as speed dating on the day. And hopping around and tasting some wonderful things as you hop around the agenda. I know that as everybody has t alked, I've gotten really excited about the work that's going on and the multi-layers of that work. For our work, we are focusing on the open hands open access modules, which many of you have been deeply involved in as creators, as advisers, as field reviewers. So we have representatives from at least 26 states. I was trying to count this up, that have helped advise, develop and field test the first eight modules. Eight modules will be available in the fall. And its regret -- representative of the true network behavior that we've been talking about. Across the developing 18 modules, because several modules are still in draft, nine through 18 will be field tested in the next calendar year. And we have, out of all of our modules, 1800 video clips. So I was thinking of you, about the video clips. Some of those videos do relate to literacy. And we should be cross pollinating network. I think there's so much good that we can do by sharing those videos, so that's very exciting time. We have excitingly, Clara will be excited about this. The welcome module and module one have been completely translated into Spanish. That includes both with captioning, Spanish captioning and described videos. We want to partner to translate more of those modules for sure. I really want to highlight that within this work, family leadership has been absolutely integral to the work at every level, both from advising, field testing and certainly from module creation. I will probably go over my three minutes if I mentioned all of the parents' names, but I do want to direct you to the wiki so that you can see some of the fantastic parent leadership that we've had in directly creating the modules. And we have even more parents that have helped us doing a brilliant job sharing their stories, their narratives, sharing videos. And then we have parents, teachers, interveners, interpreters term -- orientation and mobility specialists who have helped us build the modules along with state deaf-blind project partners. Very exciting. At the summit we want to talk about this participatory process and what it's been like. We want to share some vignettes about it what a handful of states are doing to adopt the modules to spread awareness. Which relates and overlaps to some of what Peggy was talking about in terms of raising awareness about intervention and intervener services. We also want to dialogue with states about specific needs and challenges for using the modules to help achieve local outcomes and your state-specific goals.
Thank you, Amy.
Okay. Appreciate it.
All right.
Next session over, family engagement facilitated by Diane Haynes, Clara Berg, Sherri Stanger.
Hi, John. This is Sheri. I'm on. This is Sherri Stanger. I am the director of outreach with the Charge Syndrome foundation. I'm also a parent of a 20-year-old daughter with Charge Syndrome. I will be facilitating the family engagement group along with Clara Berg and Diane Haynes. And we have four bullet points that speak to some of the broader questions posed to us by John while planning these sessions. I'll speak to the first two and then Clara will speak to the second two. The first one is, what strategies can be or currently are in place to enhance effective outreach to families? We want to take a look at some of the efforts that people are involved in that are currently working. And look ahead to things that could work. So we want to speak -- some of the points we want to bring up are parents are not quite as dependent on professionals as they have been in the past. Because they've been doing a lot of research online. How can we do a better job of explaining the benefits of getting together, having face-to-face meetings? We're finding time is of essence to families. They're not traveling as much to meetings anymore. We want to discuss the value of face-to-face meetings because we don't think that's always understood until perhaps experienced. And I also want to bring up a pilot project during the session that the charge foundation is doing that I'm spearheading. Utilizing volunteer state parent liaisons. The next bullet point is, what can we do to enhance and/or increase our knowledge and skills in order to work with families effectively considering what's going on in the world today? We're looking at today the need seems to be greater, the [Indiscernible -- audio cutting out] how can we create sustainable and effective partnerships? We want to take a look at NCD be and the large pool of info they have on their web you as you you -- how can we use their resources to create private rooms among is the rest -- interested parties? How can we motivate families and professionals to take advantage of online training offered for free? Another important point we think is social media. State projects perhaps creating private Facebook pages and groups to help facilitate the sharing of information among parents and being able to stay on top of social media and help families -- how families are using it.
30 seconds.
For me?
For the whole thing.
Okay. Go ahead, Clara.
Impossible to give three minutes to the parents on the line. I'm sorry about that but my name is Clara Berg and I'm the family specialist for the New York p roject. I'm also the President. And one of the things we want to bring to this session, talking about the importance of families is also the importance of having of the central point for all families who have an individual who is deaf-blind, the question again is, what are the states doing in order to share information about MSAD be? How are the family supports a -- the different strategies, we would love to support the different states on creating groups or networks or families. And all that sharing of i nformation, we think is extremely important. The other thing that we are going to be discussing again about families is the role of the family specialist and the different projects and the neede need on having somebody who has the proper skills to do it. Can be either a full-time or part-time person, but how important it is to be well trained. Before you give me the three fingers --
Thank you very much. Appreciate --
You're very welcome. Passing the baton is the next session over. Facilitators are Lisa Poff and Maurice Belote. You have the floor.
Let's see. Maurice, are you -- one of you, if you are trying to speak, may need to unmute your --
This is Maurice, but Lisa's going to do it. Are you there?
Lisa shows phone muted.
Okay. I'm glad to do it. Passing the baton. What we're looking at is as was mentioned earlier, on the webinar, that many people who are expected to retire in the next few years, and what are we doing to prepare the next generation of leaders? We've talked about Helen Keller national fellows and other p rograms, but some of the discussion points are, how to develop a purposeful succession plan and how are these reflected in the projects? And part of that is it's a very personal issue, knowing when it's time to go. And knowing how to let go and gracefully accept what is inevitable change, but what can be positive change. So for some people in the network, these projects are very near and dear to them. And they've been developed very carefully over many years. And knowing how to turn that over to somebody else, and having a talent pool to turn the projects over him -- how do we develop a talent pool? And mentor and identify and support future leaders? And nurture strong external supports for project staff, so using our advisory committees, collaborative partners, et cetera. And how do we use the national deaf-blind network to support a successful shifts in leadership? And I guess the overall theme over all of this is personal relationships. We've talked about relationships before this morning. But so much of the work that we do is built on the people that we k now, so the people at the state level and the local level and how do we turn those relationships over to people on the project? And allow those relationships to continue to flourish in our a bsence. So I think that's it. I think it's going to be a really interesting discussion. And it won't just focus on retirements, but any time leaves the project, what are we doing to have people ready to step in and fill leadership positions in the projects? John, I think that's it.
Good, Maurice. Thank you. The last session will be addressing here -- will be data management. The facilitators are Michelle Clyne and Tracy Evans Luiselli. You have the floor.
Michelle or Tracy? Let's take a look and see -- so Tracy is on, but I don't see --
This is Jay. For those of you who have f orgotten, star six to unmute yourself. So either Michelle or Tracy, if you want to --
Hi. It's Tracy.
Thank you.
Hi, folks. This is Tracy Evans Luiselli. I'm from the consortium with Maine New Hampshire Massachusetts Connecticut. And Michelle had a conflict today, so I'm going to jump in here. And Michelle and I wanted to talk about data management. Probably because it's an issue that is a major part of what we do. We can always learn more about it, how to do it better, more efficiently to inform our practice and to certainly gather data that we need to for OSEP. So what we wanted to do is look at a conceptual model around data management and the whole process which we started with our project goals and objectives, targeted measures, our three levels of TA and training, the actual data collection project process such as TA documents, tracking systems, how we analyze that data, how we use it to evaluate our various TA and training activities and then finally, how to use that information to inform practice. So we're really hoping that this session is an opportunity for you to come together, share what you're doing, talk about what's working, what isn't working and learn from each other and attendees would be responding to the following six questions that Michelle and I put together. Number one, what data do you currently collect relative to your TA levels of intensity 123 and what database system do you use? Number two, what challenges exist within your data collection systems such as entities not providing you with the date of that use you desperately want? Number three, what are the challenges of confidentiality and management of personally identifiable information? And how do you best deal with some of these issues? The fourth is how do you analyze and summarize data to inform your work and ensure fidelity? And finally, how do you share data in an understandable manner with a variety of advisory groups, states systems, and other audiences? We all know that quite often we have to collect data and then we have to present it in a very different format, which can be very time-consuming so we'd really like to have an opportunity to share and learn from each other. And to ultimately improve our practice. That's it, John.
All right. Thank you very much, Tracy. Thank you. So to all of you who have spoken and to all of you who have put time in on these facilitation teams and all of you on our planning committees, thank you for what I think is easy to observe as a pretty robust and full day. And again, I want to underscore that we are intending to, and we'll do our best to capture what is happening in each of these sessions through a template that we're developing. The template will be filled out by the NCDB notetaker in session who will then check back in with the facilitators who together will be able to go back to the group space at least initially. With the information. Also note please that the three-minute periods of time, view them as an initial taste. And know that in the group space, in the wiki, there's the opportunity to observe more information and more depth than was addressed today. And potentially along the road and up until the summit, additional information and likely, dialogue. So a rich opportunity is available. I think with that, I will pass back to Jay.
Let me make sure I'm coming back on. Can you see my video image, John?
You're good.
And you can hear me obviously because you answered. I'm quick on the draw. You know what? I am always excited about the opportunity to meet together in our annual coming together in DC, but I admit that I am particularly excited this year. There is so much positive energy. And it is obvious to all of us who have listened to these 12 session descriptions that there is a plethora of quality content that we can address together. I am so impressed with the variety of these sessions. Thank you again to the planning committee for identifying these topic areas. It really does -- the variety really speaks to this monumental task facing those of us who are in the deaf-blind TA world. So I appreciate the variety with which the day is approached. I know that there are concerns about missing out. I'm only able to choose three out of 12. And I'm really interested in 10. That's natural. Again, we have continued to emphasize that there are going to be mechanisms in place to ensure opportunity for involvement even if not participating live. That is part of the purpose of t his. We need to consider together how we can engage and enhance our ability to do all our work by working virtually. And I think that we continue to evolve in the right direction. And so, while it's natural to feel like there's going to be some missing out, know that it's okay. And we will do everything we can and everything will be available on the group spaces, the group space afterwards. I know that there was also some confusion about accessing the group space and not being able to navigate as we need. Know that we will follow-up this webinar with more detail about exactly how to find the group space and how to navigate it. Part of the issue is you need to actually join the group in order to have access to some of the features including the wiki. So do get to the group space and join it so that you can access that and then some of the problems will be addressed. I want to cover a few miscellaneous other areas for the day. Information aside from these sessions. First of all, I spoke earlier about our plan at the beginning to identify and introduce new people to the network. Maurice, maybe this aligns with the sessions that you all are doing on passing the baton. Again, it's amazing to me that we have such a significant representation from new people. We believe that we have the listing of all of the new people to the network that are attending deaf-blind summit this year. We're going to be sending out a message to all of those that are on this list that we have inviting you to participate in this introductory time again, highlighting that we'll take a minute to allow you to introduce yourself and give a little information, name, rank, serial number, that kind of thing. But again it's in the spirit of all of us embracing and welcoming the new folks. But also know that it's highly likely that we will be missing s ome. And so that time in the agenda is going to be approached very informally. If we're missing somebody, on that day, please don't be shy about identifying your newness as it w ere, on the spot. That's absolutely fine. And we will make it work. Also, the planning committee really wanted there to be an opportunity to celebrate all that has been accomplished over the past year, maybe even longer than that to formally recognize the good stuff as it were. So to that end, know that we will also be hosting what we're calling a celebratory social gathering immediately after the deaf-blind summit meeting. As has been true in the past, it is a very low key gathering but this year the focus is on celebrations. We will have a way for everybody or anybody to identify what those issues or things for which celebration is warranted and will be acknowledged. So please be thinking about that. Will be able to capture it kind of on the spot. For example, people who have moved into new roles, new responsibilities in this new grant cycle. That's -- that's certainly a thing to celebrate. New partnerships that have been formed. I know I've spoken to people about new partnerships for example that they have formed with their state PTI and that kind of thing. That's incredibly positive. We should be recognizing those things and acknowledging the value. If there are particularly poignant examples of positive outcomes for kids and families that you're experiencing, let's take note of that. And then certainly, the recognition and the acknowledging of people who we anticipate retiring over the course of the next year, I know that there are several that have retired over the past year, we want to make sure that we're recognizing those. And we have several that we know of that will be retiring over the course of the year. We don't have anybody immediate, so we're not going to take time to specifically recognize any specific individuals as far as we know. We don't know of anybody who's retiring any earlier than J anuary 1. And so we will come up with ways to formally acknowledge when the time is closer to actual retirement. We do want to take the opportunity to recognize those people that anticipate retiring over the course of the year so that we can be aware of that. So know that as well. Gail, I'm wondering whether you can take a few minutes to talk about the DB connect app that we will have running throughout this DB Summit? We didn't even talk about this. Are you prepared to chat a bit about that and what it will look like?
You just muted yourself, Gail.
I thought I was on mute.
There you go.
I'm back. So one of -- in the past couple of years when we've been talking about our Sundays together, we thought about using some technology to keep us -- have a more immediate connection within the group, but we've always sort of run up against the hotel logistics or costs. We just never been able to really get the tech infrastructure that we needed to have something that actually worked easily for all of us. So this year, I think because OSEP' s been more involved with the planning of technology and what's provided by the hotel, there's supposed to be greater access for mobile devices and Internet access in the room. In the meeting rooms. And so what we came up with was this simple idea that would allow all of us to stay connected during the day. And it's an app. It will work on your laptop, on your phone, and on your tablet device. If you use the browser in any of those devices, it just allows you to post a comment. It's essentially, [Indiscernible] really. You can post a comment and load a photo. And we're hoping that everybody as you move throughout the day, you'll be invited to share your ideas, your thoughts, your suggestions. I wrote in here, your despair and your delight. Through the breakout sessions. I posted this first long lengthy post from my desktop. And I posted this little gathered around the Adobe hearth this morning with my phone. Here is another comment. It's very simple. I'm posting this again with my laptop. You can star the items that -- you can share in that exchange by starring. It's anonymous. So that's either good or bad depending on how you feel about that, but we thought maybe that would encourage everybody to feel less pressure about posting, but you can always feel free to share your name and photos and your ideas and suggestions as you move throughout the day. It's national DB. Or -- NationalDB.org/DB connect. I'm sure there will be a glitch because this is my life -- [Laughter] -- but it should work. We've tested it and we'll continue to test it this week. You can post things in advance of DB Summit if you're interested, practice using it on your phone. Probably I neglected the most important piece of information in any of those devices. You use your browser.
Great. Thank you, Gail. I think this kind of technology is interesting again. It speaks to our continued evolution for what works, maybe what doesn't, we plan on having an ongoing running scroll of the DB connect wall. And we'll simply have that displayed in the main room and people as they are coming in and out can follow the comments that are coming from any of the sessions throughout the day. We also will capture the content and as appropriate, move it to ever it needs to be moved, if there's session specific information for example or specific suggestions that potentially have to go somewhere else including one of the technical work rips, the twigs or something like that, we'll take the responsibility for moving information as needed. So thanks, Gail. I appreciate that that's going to happen. Thanks too to Jeff Denson, our magical web guy, who created this app. He's amazing. So that's really great. A couple of very minor but potentially important logistical information -- again, remember that there is no coffee or tea or munchies, refreshments that will be served, so in the morning, you may want to make your caffeine pitstop before you get there. Because we're not going to have the opportunity to serve those things. Again, lunch is on your own. I know that the hotel has some flyers. We can make some flyers available about restaurants that are in the local area. Are going to have about 90 minutes. Honestly that can be a bit of a rush to get out, find something and get back. We really hope people will do that so we can take advantage of being together for every moment that we can. We do have, as we have in the past, the opportunity for Larry Wechsler from OSEP to be popping in. He had e-mailed me a couple days ago. And JoAnn has been talking to him. He is planning to join us at some point in the afternoon, probably late afternoon so I know that we always look forward to hearing from him. So that will happen as well. Also know that if individual state projects have anything that you want to share more globally, that we will have opportunity to do that at the registration table. For example, we're anticipating -- NCDB is anticipating several job positions coming available in the coming months. So we will have a flyer about what we anticipate to be some job openings within NCDB. If you have similar kinds of t hings, feel free to write those up and have them available so that you can disseminate that information during the time when we're all gathered. All right. We have about nine minutes. If we want -- if there's any specific questions or comments or suggestions, feel free to unmute yourself. And post those. I would strongly encourage, given that we have 90 plus people that are on this call, so we likely could be tripping over each other's phone lines, to continue to use the chat pod. When we're done with this webinar we will keep the room open for 10, 15 minutes. And allow you to continue to post comments, questions, concerns in the chat pod. And we will take that information and incorporate it as appropriate. But I will take a minute. If there's anything that is particularly looming, feel free to unmute yourself. And fire away.
This is Robbin. I'd also like to say that if somebody wants to speak and you're having trouble unmuting, I'm not sure what the problem is but it could be because I muted everybody. Then maybe use the raise your hand feature and I'll go through and unmute you from this and if you're having trouble, but you certainly can use the chat box as well. And I'll watch that. Sorry I missed that when you said earlier or I would have unmuted y ou.
This is John. The raise your hand feature is on the top on a bar with a hand raised and a short pulldown menu. So that's if you need to, although we can just try to have you speak right up, so --
And I see that JoAnn McCann, who I mentioned earlier, does have her hand up. Joanne, thanks for joining us.
Hi, everybody. I'm just -- I hope y'all are as thrilled as I am about this upcoming summit. John, can you post that schedule of the 12 meeting sessions?
Yes. Robbin, can you --
Robbin has to do that? I mean, this is just so exciting time. That not only is NCDB taking the lead on this, but the state and all the personnel, all the people with expertise are pulling together to make this fantastic project and network, live. And I noticed that there is one for building network neurons. This is what we're doing. We're building it from the ground up, from the top down, sideways, both ways across the country, coast-to-coast. And it's just so fabulous. I hope y'all are as excited as I a m. And kudos to everybody who's participating in this. And I'm really looking forward to a wonderful day in DC. I'm sorry about the heat. I'll tell you ahead of time it's going to be hot.
And humid.
It is not a dry heat. That's right. And it's just going to be fabulous. I can't wait to see family and friends once again. All of you. And meeting lots of new ones. So we'll see you on that Sunday. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, John.
Thank you, JoAnn. I couldn't agree more with JoAnn's comments. I am equally as excited. And I won't embarrass JoAnn at least not right now on how lucky we are to have that kind of support within OSEP. She really gets it. And it really makes a difference on all of the work on behalf of kids and families. So thanks, JoAnn. I'm glad you could join today. We really look forward to coming together. In about a week and a half, amazing time. So with that, John, I think we should probably --
Let's take a quick pause and see if anybody else is wanting to s peak. Did somebody come on? Okay. Back to you, Jay.
Again, everybody, thank you. I started this by saying that I recognized that taking 90 minutes out of one's day in what is always a very busy time is challenging. But please think of it from this perspective: we now don't need to do this same 90 minutes when we're actually together. We have now set the stage and we really can hit the ground running when we come together. So thank you for doing that. As Robbin pointed out at the beginning of this webinar, this was recorded. We really do encourage anybody who is planning to attend DB Summit, if you haven't participated today, to please take the 90 minutes to log in to the archived copy of this webinar and listened so that you have the same information that everybody who has participated life has. You really do need to be thinking about which sessions you may want to attend. With that, I will end by saying, please travel safely. I hope nobody has any travel glitches. We look forward to seeing everybody -- we have registration from 8:00 until 8:30. And then we'll formally begin at 8:30, that is 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Hawaii, that is 5:30 a.m. your time but by that point you will actually be in DC so it will be a moot point for you. Thank you for your time today. And we will see everybody on the 20th. Safe travels.
Thank you, all.
Bye-bye.
[event concluded]