Deafblindness Information

Purpose of Regional Inclusive Services

Oregon's 13,000+ students who experience visual impairment, orthopedic impairment, deafness or hard of hearing, deaf-blindness, traumatic brain injury and/or autism spectrum disorder need an appropriate and accessible education in their home school district. Regional Inclusive Services provides training, technical tools, and additional support to educators so that all school districts, no matter their size or location, can deliver an inclusive education.

Regional Inclusive Services recently changed its name from Regional Programs to more specifically and accurately describe its function. Inclusive practices ensure that students with disabilities have opportunities to learn alongside their nondisabled peers in their neighborhood schools and communities. The statewide program consists of the Oregon Department of Education and several education service districts, school districts and other community agencies who work in partnership to ensure educators and schools across Oregon are equipped with the tools, skills and resources to deliver an accessible education for all children.

What does it mean to be eligible under Deafblindness?

DeafBlindness means having both hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational problems that the child cannot be accommodated in special education programs designed solely for students having hearing or visual impairments.

Deafblindness Regional Inclusive Services Team

• Region 1 Eastern Oregon (Intermountain ESD)
  
• Region 2 Central Oregon (High Desert ESD)
  
• Region 3 Southern Oregon (Southern Oregon ESD)
  
• Region 4 Cascade (Linn Benton Lincoln ESD)
  
• Region 4 Cascade (South Coast ESD)
  
• Region 5 Willamette (Willamette ESD)
  
• Region 6 Columbia (Portland Public Schools)
  
• Region 7 Lane (Lane ESD)
  
• Region 8 Northwest (Northwest ESD)
  

Resources

• Deafblind Regional Inclusive Services Map and Contacts 2022-2023
  
• Deafblind Evaluation Components and Eligibility Criteria OAR 581-015-2140
• Oregon DeafBlind Project
  

  The Oregon Deafblind Project provides technical assistance, training and information to enhance services for children in Oregon who are deafblind, birth through age 21. The Oregon Deafblind Project is a "Technical Assistance and Dissemination" project, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. It is housed at the Teaching Research Institute on the campus of Western Oregon University at Monmouth, but serves the whole of Oregon. The Oregon Department of Education is the project’s major partner, collaborating to ensure statewide technical assistance and support to educational teams who are responsible for the education of children who are deafblind, and to reach out to and assist parents and families of this population.
  

• Oregon School for the Deaf (OSD)

  The Oregon School for the Deaf is a community that fosters lifelong learning, encouraging individuals to become self-fulfilled, productive citizens.

• DB-Link/NCDB

  The National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness.

• Helen Keller National Center

  HK National Center’s mission is to enable each person who is DeafBlind to live and work in their community of choice.

• Helen Keller National Center “Registry” Information

  The purpose of the registry is to provide basic information about persons with DeafBlindness in the United States. This information is to be used to identify the needs of person with DeafBlindness, as a planning tool and for research purposes.
  

• HB 3183 Toolkit
  

Contact:

Georgeann Harty