The goal of NIAA is to have interveners listed as a related service under IDEA. On a national level, just as interpreter services are recognized as a related service in IDEA for children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing, so must intervener services be included in IDEA as a related service for children who are Deafblind.   Doing so would prompt states and local school districts to consider these services for children and youth who are deafblind. The resulting impact on children and families would be immediate and life-changing. 

You can help by advocating for the Cogswell-Macy Act. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” ~ Helen Keller

Until interveners are listed as a related service, parents can still advocate for intervener services in their child’s IEP by sharing the following letter with their IEP team. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) supports this in an informal guidance letter written August 2, 2018. Ruth E. Ryder, then the Acting Director of the Office of Special Education Programs, addressed the question of whether intervener services could be considered related services even though interveners are not specifically identified in the list of examples of related services in IDEA.