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Outreach Services for Rural and Urban Settings

Randy Collins from the Arizona Technology Access Program (ATAP) and Sherri Collins from the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ACDHH) presented a description of the outreach activities in their state. They have developed a unique and creative approach to providing outreach in a state with large and sparse rural populations.

Sherri began the presentation with a discussion of some of they tools they to reach their widely distributed clientele.

One great tool is email, and they use an email list that goes out to about 600 people. This provides nearly instant communication to those who have online access. They also rely on a website that receives 50 thousand hits a month. They are currently updating their site and expect the improved version to be online by July 1.

ACDHH also has a weekly half-hour television program that is very effective in reaching out to the general public as well as clients. ACDHH pays for captioning and an interpreter, but there are no additional costs. They also have a quarterly print newsletter that goes out to their clients and other interested parties.

ACDHH is also involved in the Telecommunications Relay Service and runs a court interpreter certification service. These activities not only contribute directly to services, but also provide important feedback to the organization.

They also offer a Hard of Hearing Training Program for Professionals. This is a very well-respected program and attracts many of the best known hearing loss professionals.

ACDHH recently conducted a program to educate the general public about cochlear implants, and they are working to ensure that sufficient funds are available to provide universal newborn hearing screening and to follow up with families who require it.

Next, Randy discussed some of ATAP's activities. He began by pointing out that every state has a federally funded Technology Access Program whose mission is to provide assistive technology to people with disabilities. The programs tend to focus on cognitive and mobility issues, and typically do not consider people with hearing loss. Randy believes that most of the programs would like to include people with hearing loss, but do not have the connections into those communities. The funding is provided by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research (NIDRR).

ATAP provides money to four assistive technology centers throughout Arizona. These centers typically loan equipment to the public for trial, the goal being to provide people with a method to determine what type of equipment can best assist them.

Sherri pointed out that her ACDHH has one hard of hearing specialist and one Deaf specialist for the entire state, and they are hard-pressed to cover the state by themselves. One solution that has been very beneficial is the development of partner relationships with other Arizona organizations.

One example is a partnership with Northern Arizona University (NAU) to establish an equipment loan program. NAU established the Demo Sites and ACDHH provided different assistive devices for people with hearing loss. They later added equipment from the Telephone Distribution Program, which gave people a single location in their local area to investigate a wide range of technology. The program was hugely successful, and ACDHH added many additional devices to the Demo Sites. The Demo Sites are allowed to loan the devices to other non-profit agencies or to individuals for evaluation; they are not permitted to compete with private businesses.