Members of this community are professionals, parents and administrators who work with young children birth to age three. Our overall purpose is to share information and resources for improving practices in providing services and supports in natural environments.
This community is a "place" to share and discuss improvement activities and tough issues related to states' Annual Performance Report's Indicator 2: services provided in the home and community settings; Indicator 1: early intervention services on the IFSP provided timely; and Indicator 7: evaluation, assessment and the intial IFSP meeting conducted within the 45 day timeline.
Please ask questions, start discussions or post articles including policies, training materials, IFSP examples or evidenced based practices that will assist states to maintain or improve performace in these important areas.
NEW :
Go to documents tab and find document titled "Models/Names States are Using.." to see the most current named appoaches states identify as using in providng services in Early Internvention (updated 7/2009)
A national workgroup on Principles and Practices of Services in Natural Environments began meeting in 2006-2O07 and reached consensus on a number of issues as they examined the various "models" of providing services in natural environments and described key principles (Foundations); identified the research-base on effective practices that the research, model development projects and the "wisdom"from the field suggests; described agreed upon practices that are "model neutral"; and described some examples of how would you know the principles and practices are being implemented. These documents can be used in training and program development
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Issues raised and solutions suggested by participating states in the Session on Part C Settings-Services in Natural Environement. Two states, Minn and Nebraska, shared their journey of improving their service systems and their data over the past 3-5 years.
C-2 Settings Issues and suggested solutions from participants notes at the NAC conference 8/25/08.
Please feel free to comment on any of these issues, add solutions or comments by clicking on the Discussion tab and posting your comments or questions.
Issue
Defining what a Natural Environment is (by law and best practice)
Solutions:
Issue
Families liked the segregated toddler playgroups and segregated environments
Solutions
· Built parent to parent networking and support opportunities separate from child level services
· Offered training grants to child care to increase opportunities for children
· Family partners helped to clarify families’ roles
· Families offered same training opportunities as providers
Issue
Therapist not want to give up segregated group settings as they had good equipment in clinics
Solutions
· Did lots of presentations at state association conferences on what EI services could and should be
· Used state association newsletters to share information
· Now using the position papers from the associations posted on the CoP site- hard to argue with your own associations endorsement
Issue
In birth mandate state based on school calendar there was no “year-round services”
Solutions
· Worked with unions
· Expanded contracts to cover summer months
· Tapped into social services or home visiting nurses to do service coordination
Issue
Staff not wanting to be hired to work in urban areas (from all kinds of agencies) as they didn’t feel safe
Solutions
· Build relationships with community programs already working in those communities and recruit or partner with those staff
· Use the local police department to do safety training seminars for home visitors
· Two people together on visits
· Making sure staff knew simple pointers on feeling and staying safe in neighbor hoods (not carrying valuables with them and NOT getting out of the car and locking their purse or computer in trunk before going into house- don’t bring it or take it into house
· Joint training on HV safety with DHHS and other social service agencies
· Resource on home visitor safety on CoP site
· Issuing cell phones for visitors with pre-programed numbers for office and police departments
Issue
Home visiting “no-shows”
Solutions”
· Always call the day before and “remind” or ask if tomorrow is still a good day to visit
· Call on the day of the visit
· Be flexible in who/where you are visiting. Perhaps the family is down the street visiting someone else or at a relative’s on the schedule day (especially true on some of the Indian reservations where culture and extended families is so important day –to –day)
· People canceling visits or not a home are sending you a message that your services are NOT meeting their needs. Have a “neutral” party try to find out why. Don’t just drop them from services without trying to find out why
Issue:
Adopting a primary service provider model or trans-disciplinary model with one primary family contact
Solution:
· Make sure you know what you are trying to solve before undertaking a huge change- best practice to do this. (Not really cheaper if done well…is not about staff shortages as you need teams, may not work in states that contract out for services or at least may need to do different kinds of training and support activities etc.. Be clear Why you are doing this up front!
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NECTAC, South East Regional Resource Center (SERRC), and Matrix Parent Center - RPTAC 6