Online seminar: Nordic approach to deafblindness

We are happy to invite you to participate in the webinar “Nordic approach to deafblindness” organized by the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Lithuania and the Nordic Welfare Center Unit for Deafblindness, together with the Lithuanian National Education Agency and the Lithuanian Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The webinar “Nordic approach to deafblindness” will take place on September 23^rd 2021.

Official website of the event –>

Please register to the event by filling in a participant’s form here.

The aim of the webinar is to introduce the Nordic approach to congenital deafblindness, present the methods of functional assessment of persons with deafblindness, with the focus on development of support and education services to children and their parents.

The webinar is targeted to practitioners from special schools and kindergartens, psychological-pedagogical services, health experts (oftalmologists, otolaringologists, pediatricians, child psychiatrists,etc.), NGOs in the area of disability, students of social work, parents from the Baltic countries.

The webinar will have a sign language translation. Also, translation in the Lithuanian-English-Lithuanian.

Participation in the conference is free of charge.

Webinar program

14:00-14:15 Opening Words

Helén Nilsson, Director of Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania.
Grazina Seibokiene, Head of Division of Education Support, Ministry of Education, Science and Sport.

14:15-15:15 Keynotes. Identification of Congenital Deafblindness, based on the Nordic functional definition

Maria Creutz, Senior adviser, Deafblind Issues, Nordic Welfare Centre
Annika Maria Johannessen, Senior advisor at Statped, Centre for Special Education in Bergen, Department of Deafblindness and Dual Visual and Hearing Impairment.

15:15-15:25 Coffee break

15:25-16:00 Panel discussion and Q&A. Identification of Congenital Deafblindness in the Nordic and Baltic countries

Dalia Tauriene, typhlopedagogue, Lithuanian Training Centre for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Maria Creutz, Senior adviser, Deafblind Issues, Nordic Welfare Centre.
Annika Maria Johanssen, senior advisor at Statped, Centre for Special Education in Bergen, Department of Deafblindness and Dual Visual and Hearing Impairment.
Malle Kariste, Estonian Support Union of the Deafblind.
Ligita Ģeida, Director of Riga Strazdumuiza center for visually impaired and blind children.

The knowledge sharing activities about deafblind issues among the professionals of the Nordic and Baltic countries date back to 1992. There were quite a number of initiatives and events of the competence building of the Baltic stakeholders in cooperation with the Nordic competence centres.

In 2020 the Deafblind Field of Nordic Welfare Centre hosted series of courses and online seminars about communication with deafblind persons (“Tactile language” and “Revealing Hidden Potentials”) for international professionals’ community contributing to promoting equal opportunities and supporting participation in society for people with combined vision and hearing impairment and deafblindness. The links to video films could be found HERE →