In 2006 the National Deafblind Intervener Initiative grew out of a series of conference calls with several parents from Texas and Minnesota. That initial group grew to include parents from Arizona and Massachusetts and became known as NDBII. In 2009 this group of parents gathered in Washington DC to meet with legislators to share the importance of interveners for children with combined vision and hearing loss. In 2010 a larger group of parents expressed the desire to create a document about interveners to share with parents across the nation. As a result, in 2012, A Family’s Guide to Interveners for Children with Combined Vision and Hearing Loss was published and mailed to every state Deafblind project across the country and to each state’s Parent Training and Information Center. In 2016 members of the group traveled to the Cogswell-Macy Capitol Hill Advocacy Day – once again meeting with legislators about the importance of interveners. In 2018, the NDBII Parent Group, now known as the NIAA Parent Group, developed the following goals:

1. Focus on change at the national level to establish interveners as a right for individuals who are deafblind.
a. Search for pathways to revise current national regulations, code, etc. that don’t rely on the reauthorization of IDEA. 
b. During IDEA reauthorization, advocate for interveners to be added as related services providers.
c. Articulate the difference in interveners as professionals vs. interveners as paraprofessionals.  
d. Educate parents and others on the rights of children who are deafblind to have interveners.

2. Clarify the standards for intervener training.
a.  Promote higher education training for interveners that aligns with the high standards of training for professionals who are currently listed as related service providers in IDEA.
b.  Articulate the differences between higher education training that leads to the National Intervener Credential and In-service training options that may or may not lead to a “certification”.  
c.  Support the National Intervener & Advocate Association (NIAA) as the representative voice for the intervener profession.
d.  Educate parents and others on how to advocate for an intervener and to encourage higher education training and the National Intervener Credential.

If you would like to be involved in the NIAA Parent Group, please complete the form below. There are no membership fees to date. You will be part of an organization that advocates for interveners and we can combine your individual voice with the voices of hundreds of other parents across the country.