Mission and Vision Statement

Our mission is to promote and provide equal access to communication and learning through described and captioned educational media. The ultimate goal of the DCMP is for accessible media to be an integral tool in the teaching and learning process for all stakeholders in the educational community, including students, educators and other school personnel, parents, service providers, businesses, and agencies.

The DCMP supports the U.S. Department of Education Strategic Plan for 2007–2012 by committing to the following goals:

• Ensuring that all students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind have the opportunity to achieve the standards of academic excellence.
   
• Advocating for equal access to educational media as well as the establishment and maintenance of quality standards for captioning and description by service providers.
   
• Providing a collection of free-loan described and captioned educational media.
   
• Furnishing a clearinghouse of information and research about accessible media.
   
• Acting as a gateway to Internet resources related to accessibility.
   
• Exploring and adapting new media and technologies that assist students in obtaining and using available information.

The Described and Captioned Media Program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the National Association of the Deaf.