Exploration and Partnerships

The exploration and building partnerships phases of systems-change projects cover a range of activities. Exploration includes assessing needs, evaluating your project’s capacity, defining the problem, proposing solutions, and setting desired outcomes. Systems can be poorly defined and systems-change efforts often involve a high degree of ambiguity. Committing time and resources upfront to exploratory work will go a long way towards keeping your systems work focused during challenging situations.

Building partnerships involves taking advantage of existing relationships, identifying potential new partners, and collaboration with low-incidence infrastructure entities. Because services to individuals who are deaf-blind occur within existing systems, partnerships are critical. You will need partners within the systems you target to act as champions and assist you in navigating system-specific processes and procedures.

The following documents contain initiative-specific information about exploration tasks and building partnerships:

• Transition
• Family Engagement
• Qualified Personnel (Teachers and Related Service Providers) 
• Intervener Services
• Early Identification and Referral
• Early Intervention Professional Development