Linda Alsop receives 2017 Exemplary Advocate Award (UT UCEDD)

May 1, 2017

Linda Alsop received the Exemplary Advocate Award for 2017 at from the Council for Exceptional Children Division of Visual Impairment and Deafblindness at their annual convention held in April. Alsop is a project director at the Ski*Hi Institute, operating in the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University.

She has over 20 years of experience directing federal projects in deafblindness and has worked with the Utah State Deafblind Technical Assistance Project and Baby Watch Early Intervention providing services, training and resource materials. She developed and implemented the first online deafblind training program in the country that trains interveners to work with children and youth with deafblindness, and this coursework won the national Blackboard Greenhouse Exemplary Course award. Over the years, Alsop has worked closely with the Utah State Office of Education and the Utah State Legislature in obtaining state funding for services to children and youth who are deafblind in Utah.

For the past ten years, she has led the National Intervener Task Force in advocacy and system's change efforts in behalf of individuals who are deafblind, and most recently, she established a National Intervener Credential through the National Resource Center for Paraprofessionals (NRCPara). She works closely with parents of children who are deafblind throughout the country, providing training, support, and materials related to educational laws and the rights of their children to have access to a Free and Appropriate Public Education.