Family-Directed Assessments

The new Part C regulations have been revised to place additional importance on the voluntary family-directed assessment. For some this is new information, for others it is simply a confirmation of the how to perform initial and ongoing assessments. To create an IFSP that truly serves a child and their family, it is important that families decide if they want to participate in a family-directed assessment, who is involved (parents, grandparents, siblings, caregivers, even a neighbor), and how much to share (everything, something, nothing--though this won't really lead to an effective IFSP). The regulations require that qualified personnel use an assessment tool and an interview when performing a voluntary family-assessment.

Preparation

But how can families prepare? Families report that the initial assessment can be a whilrwind of new information and terms. One way is to provide families with a form that they can fill out before meeting with the assessment team.That form can help families to organize their thoughts, and begin the process of thinking about their concerns, priorities and resources. 

Training

Providing training to families on outcomes, what they are, and how families enrolled in early intervention can develop both child-focused and family-focused outcomes can be beneficial. Families and professionals also need to learn the difference between Part C outcomes and Part B goals. It can also be helpful to inform families and professionals about how goals in Part B can be developed that are student-focused or teacher-focused.

Finding Information

There are many websites out there catering to the field of early intervention. Yet, anyone who provides training and support to families of young children knows that they continue to say that they are not finding the information that they want or need. What is the disconnect then?

Is it website design?

Many of the websites designed for early intervention programs use words that are not familiar to families who are new to early intervention. In fact, even calling it early intervention can be confusing! Families either have a diagnosis (Down syndrome, Arthrogryposis, Prematurity, microcephaly...) or a concern about a delay (not walking yet, delayed speech, not sitting up...). At the beginning of their journey families often don't know the words or jargon that go with early intervention. It is therefore important to think about what words families use when searching online. What information new families might need or want. Organizations can use a small focus group of families new to early intervention to ask them how they searched, what they searched for and what they were hoping to find. Having this information can help to create a website that provides the information in a way that increases the likelihood that families can find what they need, when they need it.

Is it an issue of focus?
State early intervention programs not only share information with families, they share it with other state agencies, county programs, contracted providers and early childcare programs. Each of these audiences have different needs from the website and different levels of expertise with the terms used in early intervention. Again, when designing or redesigning a website it is important to think about how different users will interact with the site. The site can be organized to have different doors or portals for different types of users. Even when thinking only about families we can think about the difference between families with a diagnosis and those with concerns about delays. Families of potentially eligible children have different questions then families of children who have been determined eligible. And families who have moved into leadership positions--joining family advisory councils, parent to parent programs and state Interagency Coordinating Councils (ICCs)--have different informational needs. Thinking through these different groups and their informational needs can help to insure your website is reaching your intended audience.

More fun with Pinterest!

We've been talking about Pinterest during our last few posts, here and here.  We have been busy pinning and pinning, adding pinners to our board and well, we realized that our board was getting unwieldy.  So, we've broken the EI Board into a group of boards.


Rearranging Boards
There are no hard and fast rules for how to arrange your Pinterest boards.  However, if you want others to follow you, it is helpful if you think about your board name, what others might look for and how to categorize your board.  So our EI Board:  is now broken into the following boards:

• Adaptive/Behavior/Responsibility
• Assistive Technology
• Fine Motor
• Gross Motor
• Sensory
• Social Emotional
• Speech/Feeding

Added Bonus

Rearranging our boards has also meant that we've picked up new followers!  Folks we hadn't interacted with before.  (Blogging about Pinterest, and sharing our blogs on other sites has also lead us to other Pinterest followers as well).

Part C Regulations

In my last post, I discussed how one might use social media to inform families and the field about potential policy changes.  Today, I'll talk about real policy changes that will have impacts on early intervention.  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, was reauthorized in 2004, and the final regulations were just released in September of 2011.


Reviewing the Regulations
Many groups reviewed the proposed regulations.  In 2009, the IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinator's Association (ITCA), Part C Coordinators for many states, worked with the Division of Early Childhood of the Council of Exceptional Children (DEC) to produce joint comments.    The Early Intervention Family Alliance,  (EIFA), a group of family leaders (disclaimer--I am a Founding Board Member and Past President), submitted comments on the proposed regulations.  More information can also be found at the OSEP-funded National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center website.