Guiding the way for early intervention: updates from Gallaudet's National Beacon Center

In April 2024, the National Beacon Center at Gallaudet University received a grant award of $3.75 million from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. Initiated by Tawny Holmes Hlibok, ’05 & G-’10, the National Beacon Center celebrates its first year of operation. Co-Directors Dr. Christi Batamula, G-’02, and Dr. Bobbie Jo Kite, ’04 & G-’06, share several accomplishments the center has made since then.

First, some background: the National Beacon Center is dedicated to ensuring all deaf and hard-of-hearing newborns, infants, and young children up to age 3 have access to the support they need to thrive. The National Beacon Center works to support Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs and strengthen EHDI systems by providing tailored technical assistance, sharing data-driven insights, and fostering collaboration to enhance programs and improve outcomes. Deaf and hard-of-hearing children must reach critical language milestones through early identification and intervention.

The Health Resources and Services Administration established the EHDI National Network (ENN) of three centers with distinct purposes and expertise, working collaboratively with key stakeholders on implementation science and change management. ENN is a nationwide effort to improve early hearing detection and intervention systems; each center has a specific role:

1. The National Beacon Center is the Implementation and Change Center (ICC). The ICC helps state and territory EHDI programs put into practice the best science to help deaf and hard-of-hearing children and families get the services they need to meet language milestones.
   
2. The Family Leadership in Language and Learning Center (FL3). The FL3 strengthens family engagement, leadership, and family support across EHDI systems. Hands & Voices serves as the FL3 Center.
   
3. The Provider Education Center (PEC). The PEC helps healthcare professionals who screen, diagnose, and provide services to infants, children, and families interacting with the EHDI system. The American Academy of Pediatrics serves as the PEC.

The National Beacon Center aims to ensure that each deaf or hard-of-hearing child can benefit from accessible language. This means ensuring that families are provided with early information and unbiased presentation of all the language opportunities and supports available to them. The National Beacon Center’s unique role is to support and train EHDI Coordinators by working directly with all EHDI Programs to ensure they have the tools, resources, and expertise needed to do this work. 

In the first year, the National Beacon Center worked hard to establish the center as a source of support for EHDI coordinators and their teams. Check out the website for more details on the work and to meet the team behind the National Beacon Center! 

Some highlights from the center include the Look, Listen, and Learn campaign (L3). This campaign is about taking intentional time to meet and listen to each state and territory team. During these meetings, the National Beacon Center learns about the strengths of their EHDI systems and ways to provide support to strengthen their systems. The National Beacon Center has met with over 30 of the 59 state and territory teams! The biggest takeaway is that each state’s EHDI system differs greatly from the next. 

The National Beacon Center is preparing to launch another major campaign, Be The Change. This campaign will provide an in-depth analysis of the state or territory’s EHDI system pipeline. This will include identifying where they are strong and where they need more support. The National Beacon Center will collaborate with the ENN to design and provide focused technical assistance and support to help that state or territory strengthen its system. 

The National Beacon Center also connects EHDI Coordinators with resources such as deaf mentorship opportunities, deaf communities, deaf schools and programs, and more. The National Beacon Center provides workshops and webinars on various EHDI-related topics. If you are looking for ways to support this work, we welcome your recommendations for providing or adding resources to our resource repository using this form. 

The National Beacon Center would like to clarify its role in the EHDI Annual Conference. While the center attends the conference to engage with EHDI Coordinators, it does not organize, fund, or oversee the event. The conference continues to be hosted independently by the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management (NCHAM) at Utah State University. Hosting a national conference is not a requirement of the HRSA award. The National Beacon Center remains committed to supporting EHDI Coordinators in other ways. 

The National Beacon Center looks forward to continuing its important work to ensure deaf and hard-of-hearing children reach critical language milestones through early identification and intervention.