Every infant, toddler, and family who comes into our early intervention (EI) system has a point of transition. In most cases, the family is preparing for the child’s next adventure beyond EI. The family has to learn about and adjust to the idea of a different support system. They may feel sad to be leaving what is familiar, but also excited (and a little nervous) about what’s to come because it means their child is growing and ready to move forward. They need to learn about where they are going while saying a fond goodbye to their EI family.

That is exactly how I feel right now.

I have a big transition ahead of me. I have accepted a faculty position as an assistant professor of early childhood special education at Old Dominion University so I will be leaving my VEIPD team at the end of July. I am super excited about my next big adventure and am doing my best to prepare for it, knowing that my support system will change and I have much to learn. I definitely feel sadness about leaving what is familiar – I’ve worked with the VEIPD team for 12 years and I love my colleagues. I’ve had amazing opportunities to develop this blog, create resources for EI practitioners doing the most important work of supporting families, facilitate training where I learned alongside participants, and connect with EI practitioners and leaders all over the country. Where I’m headed is built on the foundation of where I’ve been, much like how EI provides a foundation on which families transition. It is with much love and gratitude that I make this transition, even if it hurts my heart just a little (ok, maybe more than a little…).

This Is Not Goodbye…

I have decided to approach my transition without saying goodbye. Instead, this is a big “see you later!” because I may be leaving the VEIPD team (although I consider myself a lifetime member), but I’m not leaving what I love. I love early intervention. I love learning with others. I love sharing new knowledge, building resources, and helping others learn and grow. I am so fortunate to have been a part of this team and so excited to take what I’ve learned and share it with new colleagues and students who will be the future of the EI workforce. Great things are coming!

Again, with lots of love and gratitude, I wish all of you, our subscribers, the very best! Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing your brilliance here on our blog!

See you later! 🙂

After July 22, 2022, I can be reached at Old Dominion University at dchildre@odu.edu.

Please reach out to Cori Hill (cfhill@vcu.edu) or Lisa Terry (lmterry@vcu.edu) if you have questions about the blog or any other resources from the VA Early Intervention Professional Development Center.

The post It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later! appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.

Early social and emotional development includes the ability for young children to “form close and secure adult and peer relationships; experience, regulate, and express emotions in socially and culturally appropriate ways; and explore the environment and learn — all in the context of family, community, and culture” (Yates et al., 2008, p. 2). This describes the way infants and toddlers understand and communicate their emotions to build healthy relationships with those closest to them.

When you think about social and emotional development, all of the words above may come to mind. Each word is a critical component of social and emotional development. In early intervention, all practitioners play a key role in supporting the emotional well-being of every young child and their family.

Why and What You Can Do

“Social and emotional experiences with primary caregivers as well as interactions with other children and adults early in life set the stage for future academic and personal outcomes, and undergird other areas of development” (Darling-Churchill & Lippman, 2016, p. 2). You have a unique opportunity to nurture the connection between the caregiver and child and promote successful outcomes for each child you serve.

Here are eleven easy strategies you can implement to support social and emotional development:

1. Boost the parents’ confidence. This is a hard time for many parents. Parents may feel responsible for their child’s developmental delay. Building their confidence empowers them to feel competent. When someone feels good, it makes them happy. This helps promote positive parent-child interactions.

2. Support the child’s self-esteem. Children tend to avoid difficult tasks. After all, nobody likes failing. Boosting a child’s self-esteem gives him/her confidence to explore and try new things.

3. You can never give too much information. Explain what you are doing and why you are doing it. This helps parents understand the reasoning behind the intervention strategies you suggest or model.” Give parents plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

4. Focus on increasing positive parent-child interactions. Many children may resist demands placed on them. A positive parent-child interaction removes the feeling of a demand and makes the interaction playful and fun. It enhances the bond between the caregiver and child.

5. Read cues and intervene before a child is in his/her red zone. There are four stress responses a child may experience: Green zone, red zone, blue zone, or combo zone. Click here to read the checklist that identifies different behaviors associated with each zone. Positive emotions are associated with the green zone and negative emotions are associated with the other stress responses. Children are more likely to come back and stay in the green zone when parents are attuned to their moods and feelings. Becoming a detective for your child’s stress cues can be a great tool to improve attunement.

6. Model the behaviors you wish to see. We can help parents learn to model behaviors they want to see in their children as they grow into adults. Children learn how to manage big feelings in large part by watching their adults manage big feelings.

7. Explain the importance of comfort. Comfort is a big part of secure attachment. So often parents get mixed messages about comfort from society – sometimes it seems as if comfort is the same as creating a weak child. We can bust that myth by sharing the information we know about the role of comfort in early brain development.

8. Provide structure and routine. Routines are the safe walls around a child’s day. There is no RIGHT kind of routine but whatever it is, the more predictable for the child, the better. Routines that are repetitive for a child help them make sense of the world. They will always have another chance to practice the things they struggle with most.

9. Use positive behavior supports. A positive and proactive approach to supporting behaviors helps reduce parental stress and increase positive behaviors in children as they aim to please their parents. These strategies decrease reactivity and should be individualized for each child and situation.

10. Label emotions. Language is a major learning tool for children and during the young toddler and preschool years, we learn and use language as a way of making sense of the world. Putting words to feelings helps children learn that feelings are generally transient and aren’t a permanent state of being. This is something we should be regularly talking about with our parents.

11. Increase parent responsiveness. Parent responsiveness nurtures a safe, secure attachment allowing a child to explore and thrive in their environment as the child becomes more resilient and independent. Wonder with the parents about what their child may be feeling or thinking so they can respond in an intentional and positive way. 

What challenges or barriers do you face as an early interventionist supporting social and emotional development?

What other strategies would you add to support each child’s social and emotional development?

Additional Resources:

DEC Child Social-Emotional Competence Checklist

Supporting Social and Emotional Development: What ALL Early Interventionists Can Do Handout

References

Darling-Churchill, & Lippman, L. (2016). Early childhood social and emotional development: Advancing the field of measurement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 45, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2016.02.002 

Yates, T., Ostrosky, M., Cheatham, G., Fettig, A., Shaffer, L., & Santos, R. (2008). Research synthesis on screening and assessing social–emotional competence. Retrieved from Center on the Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/documents/rs_screening_assessment.pdf

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Remember with me. You are a young child—in your elementary years—and you find yourself in an ice-cream shop. Let’s call it Baskin Robbins for the sake of nostalgia. You can barely see over the freezers but as you gaze up and down the line at all the different flavors to choose from, your excitement and childlike wonder is interrupted by… stress. You feel that flicker of overwhelm becoming increasingly more intrusive because you know you have to narrow it down and that you have to order and that people are waiting on you and that you want it ALL but that you can’t possibly have all 31 flavors and…

Phew. Still with me? Now, imagine that there were only ever just 3 flavors. How does this change the way you would feel peering over the freezers? How might your decision-making process feel different? Many parents in early intervention may empathize with this young child’s anxiety around making decisions from a multitude of possibilities.

So Many Important Decisions

While we, as service coordinators and providers, place parent engagement and empowerment at the forefront of our practices, it may be prudent to consider how this can be felt from the parent’s perspective. For example, the development of the IFSP (especially right after assessment for service planning) might evoke a sense of uncertainty from parents. How? Hearing the assessment report and being asked to participate in the child outcome summary process using may elicit a range of emotions on the grief spectrum. Denial, sadness, anger, rejection, guilt, shame, and hopelessness are a few of the emotions that parents may feel, especially when hearing their child be described by strangers in an unexpected way. By the same token, parents who received the news they were expecting (i.e. that their child qualifies for the program) may be trying to reconcile feelings of being validated and heard with guilt for being “right” about something they did not want to be “right” about. Nonetheless, grief counseling suggests that important decisions should be avoided while someone is experiencing grief.

Similarly, discussing a joint plan with a provider at the beginning or end of a session might do the same. Parents may question themselves: Who’s to say I’m the expert? Am I picking the right thing to work on? What if I tell her what I really want and it’s the wrong answer? What if I’m wasting the time I have with the provider by picking the “wrong” thing to work on? Surely, we all can empathize with this hesitancy when it comes to wanting to make the best decisions on behalf of those we love. Our task is to help parents feel confident in their own ability to make those decisions, eventually without our help.

Where Do We Start?

Use active listening at all times to capture the essence of the parent’s message. What things have they kept mentioning? What are they saying would make life easier for them? What stresses do they mention over and over? What are things that bring them joy? Think about some other ways to engage in and practice active listening with those in your personal circle.

Use cues from the parent during your interactions with them to guide conversations about what things would be helpful to address. Maybe you notice that the dad has repeatedly mentioned that he cuts his 33-month-old son’s food up into very small pieces when asked about meal-time. Perhaps the mom has intentionally turned the TV on and situated the baby in front of it before giving him the bottle. You may notice a parent look nervously towards the back of the house where her other children are during your meetings. Maybe the dad prefers to stand at the kitchen counter during sessions rather than in the same area as you or the child. What questions could you ask after noticing some of these cues from parents?  How can you tailor your questions to get more clarity about these behaviors’ driving forces?  

Make sure you understood them correctly. Use reflective and judgement-free language to flesh out concepts they’re sharing with which you may be unfamiliar. Use phrases such as “I’m hearing…; you mentioned…; I thought I heard something about…; it seems like ___ is very important to you…; can you tell me more about what _____means and/or looks like in your daily life…; would you like to share more about ____…, etc.” Active listening may involve jotting down notes, which can be referenced before the next meeting with the family.

Got It. Now what?

It is the responsibility of the service coordinators and providers to scaffold decision-making as warranting situations arise to help the family feel confident and at ease, not only with the decisions they are tasked to make in those moments, but also with the process of how to critically and confidently think them through.

Share your thoughts below in chat!

Be sure to check out the first post this series:

Get the Backstory: Validating and Valuing Family Input

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Imagine: you are sharing your deepest wishes with a trusted friend. You are sharing a cup of coffee on the couch and you feel led to begin a conversation about your goals for the coming New Year. You share your regrets from the past year and your hopes and dreams about how you envision this New Year. You are deep in thought and passionate about articulating these ambitions out loud. Your friend’s response, much to your surprise, is superficially supportive. You sense judgement but you can’t put your finger on it. Why is she being short? Why does her smile look fake? Does she realize her eyebrows just did that? You begin to wonder what her thoughts are and to feel… Vulnerable. Embarrassed. Insecure.

A Parent’s Perspective

Now, imagine that instead of talking to a dear friend, you are talking to a complete stranger in an intake meeting, no coffee involved. Instead of freely sharing your priorities for the New Year, you are being asked to name priorities you have for your most precious hope in the world—your child.

Will I be judged for what’s important to my family and me? Was that the right thing to say? Is that the kind of answer they’re looking for? Geez, I have so many I can’t even put them in order. I need help sorting this out in my head and I am entirely overwhelmed but I don’t want the lady to think I don’t care if I am too vague. Is it okay to breastfeed in here?

These are just some of the thoughts that ran through my head as a parent as I began the early intervention process with my, then, 8 month old. Some deep reflection led me to the following conclusion: From my team, I needed my priorities validated and valued so that I could begin to trust them and their input into our lives.

Building Rapport, Being Curious, and Cultivating Relationships

As service coordinators and providers, it is our job to give up control for the sake of building rapport and trust so that deeper and more meaningful impacts can be achieved during the entire early intervention journey. You might be thinking, But, I don’t control interactions! I help the family with guiding questions to get them to a point where both the clinical/developmental priorities and family priorities are aligned. We have all been there. It can be challenging to reconcile the priorities that are indicated through family and formal assessments with what the family is sharing as their priorities. However, a family’s priorities can and should be discussed informally, too, starting with the first contact you have with them.

To ponder: What barriers to active listening and getting the backstory have you experienced in your relationships and interactions with families?

How?

Be genuinely curious about families, their daily lives, and their backgrounds. Ask for the sake of truly learning, and not documenting. Repeat back what you hear them say often to check that you are understanding their meaning. Validate them when you sense uncertainty, stress, or when they share about topics that are clearly close to their hearts. Use your intuition. Ask open ended questions—not the kind that indicates you are checking off a list, but the kind you would ask when something someone has just said has genuinely sparked your interest. Once you have a truer understanding of where a person is coming from, you can begin to introduce how early intervention can help facilitate and highlight these priorities in the family’s life using the family’s everyday routines and priorities.

To ponder: How might these initial and ongoing interactions inform your practice as you continue to cultivate a relationship with the family throughout the EI process?

So, where does that leave us? For anyone, the first step to making changes is acknowledging that change would bring an added benefit to your quality of life. Seeking help, self-referring, taking a random number that the PCP handed them and calling, showing up to appointments, answering the phone to unknown numbers– these are all indications that a family is open to change. As providers and service coordinators, the most important part of our job is to cultivate relationships that are conducive to productive and meaningful change. We begin that cultivation that by simply listening— getting the backstory so that you can truly walk alongside the family as they continue developing the rest of their early intervention narrative.   

Share with us! What are your go-to questions/conversation-starters that you have in your toolbox to help you ease into this informal approach of getting the backstory?

Micaela is a former early intervention service coordinator and developmental services provider. She holds a master’s degree in Early Childhood and Family Development and her passion is helping families astound themselves with all they can achieve. She is, most importantly, the mother of a beautiful little boy. She and her family have been receiving the support and services of EI since her son was 7 months old. Micaela and her husband are excited to be welcoming a little girl into the world this spring. Through this blog series, Micaela hopes to merge the distinct perspectives of a parent, a service coordinator, and a provider into a unique cultivation of meaningful insight and conversation.

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On May 1, 2021, Governor Northam proclaimed May as Early Intervention Awareness Month in Virginia. Many EI programs use this month to raise awareness and build relationships with referral sources, physician offices, other community programs, and of course, families. The video What is Early Intervention in Virginia? is often shared widely because it provides an overview explaining what EI is, what it looks like, and how it works. One of the things I love about this video is the opportunity to see and hear from families who have experienced EI. I think family stories are perhaps the most powerful “tools’ we have to build awareness of what EI has to offer. They can help us reach new families and invite them into partnerships with us. Family stories also remind us about why we do what we do. With that in mind, I’m going to share several videos you can use to spread the word about EI from the perspectives of families. If you have other videos you love too, please share the links by leaving a comment below. Here we go!

Reflections during the Final Visit (CO Dept of Education, runtime 5:46)

This video features a mother reflecting on her relationship with the physical therapist who visited her home to support her and her daughter. I think that perhaps, showing what happens at the end of EI, like you’ll hear and see in this video, can help open a doorway to the beginning of EI for another family.

Liam’s Story: A Mother’s Voice (VEIPD, runtime 5:15)

This video also features a mother telling the story of her family’s experience with EI. This story is a powerful reminder of the impact of this work on the daily lives and relationships of families. As an early interventionist, you never know what you might say or do that can have a lifelong impact. EI Awareness Month can be a nice reminder about that too.

Dream Big: A FIT Family Story (FIT FOCUS Video Library, runtime 5:27)

In this video, you’ll hear from a mother and father about how EI worked for them. They explain the emphasis on helping the family help the child. They also describe about how coaching helped them to use strategies in their home during the things they already do rather than adding extra things to do. They also share advice for families to “dream big for your child.” (Due to permission settings, you’ll need to click the “Watch on Vimeo” button below. This video is definitely worth the extra click.)

Parents and Early Intervention (EITP Illinois, runtime 7:59)

I featured this video in another recent post because it’s new. I think it’s worth mentioning again as another resource to share a family’s story. Even though this isn’t a family in VA, I think this family’s message is universal.

That’s just a few of the fantastic family story videos that are floating around the web. If you’d like to see more videos of families in EI, check out the Early Intervention Video Library and look for Families’ Experiences in EI in the menu. You might also find the Early Intervention – General page helpful for sharing info about EI with others.

So what are you doing to celebrate EI Awareness Month? What is your favorite EI family story video?

Share your thoughts, ideas, and video links in the comments below!

The post EI Awareness Month in VA – The Power of Family Stories appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.

Raise your hand if facilitating transition from early intervention (EI) has been challenging for you or your staff?

Rest assured, you are not alone! We, on the professional development team, consistently hear from service coordinators (especially newbies) and local EI system managers that transition is daunting. They tell us that they or their staff struggle with managing the timelines, filling out the IFSP transition pages, scheduling the meetings, and generally keeping all of the requirements in mind. EI practitioners want to make sure the process works well for families, and as you know, transition is federally monitored so it is very common to feel pressure to “do it right.” To help you help your staff, or help yourself, ensure smooth transitions, we’ve developed a new Transition from Early Intervention Learning Path.

What is a Learning Path?

Learning Paths are small collections of curated activities that focus on an EI topic. To learn about the topic, learners complete each activity on the path. Activities might include reading an article, completing an online module, watching a video, etc. Once the learner completes the learning path, he/she takes a final quiz to earn a certificate documenting the professional development hours earned.

We have several learning paths available now – two on Autism Spectrum Disorder and five on functional assessment. In this post, we’re going to focus on our newest learning path on transition and talk about how to use it with your staff, whether you are meeting in-person or virtually.

A Four-Step Plan for Staff Development

Here are four steps you can use or adapt when helping your staff brush up on their knowledge about transition from EI:

1. Open a discussion about transition during a staff meeting.

Before your staff start the learning path, pull them together for a virtual or in-person meeting about transition or add this to your staff meeting agenda. Use open-ended questions to facilitate a discussion that airs out the challenges and makes room for successes and strategies. Be open to hearing what your staff still need to know. Here are some examples of guiding questions:

• What’s going well this year with transition?
• What do you find challenging about transition? Why?
• What questions do you have about facilitating transition?
• What does a successful, smooth transition look like?
• What tools and strategies are you using now for successful transitions?

2. Guide your staff through the Transition Learning Path.

Introduce your staff to the transition learning path by taking them on a web tour during the meeting, or email them the link to the path with instructions for what to do. To familiarize yourself, take a moment now and visit the Transition Learning Path. Review the six activities, then come back here for more ideas for how to continue the learning process.

Here are some options for how to help your staff move through the path:

• Have staff do one activity before each staff meeting for the next 6-7 meetings
• Convene a special transition discussion group to do each activity together then discuss
• Give staff a deadline to complete the learning path then get together to discuss using specific guiding questions
• Identify staff partners to work through the path together by completing activities and coming together regularly to meet, then pull the whole group together to discuss and share insights.

Or, if you are an individual service coordinator or service provider, you can complete the path on your own. I recommend completing the activities across several sessions rather than trying to knock it all out in one afternoon. The path results in a certificate documenting four professional development hours (after completing a knowledge check) so you will get the most out of it by absorbing the content across time.

3. Continue the learning with a Transition Learning Byte.

Learning across time is always more effective than learning from a single event or resource. The nature of the learning paths encourages learning across time, but you can extend the conversation even further by using the Shooting the Transition Hoop Learning Byte. Learning Bytes are staff meeting activities on a variety of EI topics. The purpose of the transition learning byte is to guide learners as they review key things to remember about transition and reflect on how they can use this information in their daily work with children and families. This could be an activity you do after a group discussion about what was learned from the learning path as a way to debrief. Or, use this learning byte two weeks or a month later to refresh and revisit transition.

4. Revisit the Transition from Early Intervention Services to Part B Preschool Special Education Performance Checklist in 3 months.

Another idea to stretch the conversation and continue the learning would be to use the Transition Performance Checklist multiple times. It is included as an activity on the learning path, but you could have your staff complete it again three months down the road as a self-assessment, either during a group meeting, at supervision, or during peer observations.

Transition is an ongoing process that is so important to ensuring families leave EI with confidence. Whether your staff includes service coordinators, service providers, or both, all EI practitioners can benefit from an understanding of the process. If you want more information or resources about transition, be sure to visit the VA Early Intervention Professional Development Center site’s Transition topic page.

How could YOU use the new Transition Learning Path?

Share your ideas in the comments below!

Resource Highlight: Transition Tutorials

This 4-part series of video tutorials is part of the learning path but can be very useful to staff on their own. These tutorials explain how to complete the transition section of VA’s IFSP and additional requirements in the process:

• Transition:  A Series of Family Decisions 
• Transition: Developing the Plan and Documenting the Steps 
• Transition in Action: Scenarios
• Transition Conference Requirements 

Look for the tutorials on the VEIPD Transition topic page, under the eLearning tab!

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During the past year, our world has overturned with public health concerns, teleworking from home, social distancing, and childcare facility closures.  As this shift has occurred, we as EI providers have naturally adjusted to our new reality. However, some of these exact safety measures meant to keep the public safe has created a daunting reality of under-reported cases of child abuse or neglect.

Statistics show a drastic decline of child abuse reports since the start of the pandemic:

According to The Washington Post, “In the nation’s capital, hotline reports of abuse and neglect between mid-March and mid-April were 62 percent lower than in the same period last year, according to the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. Reports to child protective services in Maryland have fallen just as far, and in Virginia, referrals from school staffers have dipped by 94 percent.” (Schmidt & Natanson, 2020)

It is easy to overlook such a scenario, because decreased child abuse reports are a good thing, right? On the contrary, experts will tell you otherwise. Children without routine encounters from childcare providers, health professionals, and other social advocates lead to emergency room visits due to severe injuries from abuse. Fewer cases are brought in for immediate medical attention until the severity of their injuries are no longer concealable.   

As EI providers, we must be more alert towards the signs of abuse and neglect in our client’s homes. For some families, our tele-therapy sessions are their only lifelines for social support.

How Can We Help?

How can we help those children who are isolated, cut off from childcare providers, social contacts, or protection services?

As mandated reporters, we have a duty to uphold when we see suspected abuse or neglect in the children we serve. During this time when face to face visits are at a halt or at limited capacity, it is even more important to check in with our families through virtual sessions or over the phone.

What to do if you witness a parent display abusive or aggressive behavior towards a child during a telehealth session?

• Avoid judging remarks or facial expressions
• Re-direct and diffuse the conversation in a positive manner not to escalate the situation
• Discuss what positive behaviors that you have observed from the child to highlight their strengths
• Offer positive reinforcement strategies for challenging behaviors
• Check in with the parent to see if they are in need of community support or other resources

If you suspect or witness child abuse or neglect, call your local department of social services or child protective services. If there is evidence of immediate harm or threat to the child and/or family member, CALL THE POLICE.

Share some strategies or tips below in the comments about how you check in with the child and family’s wellbeing during your EI telehealth visits. 

Resources:

Virginia Department of Social Services

Virginia Child Protective Services: 1-800-552-7096

Out-of-State Child Protective Services: 804-786-8536

SCAN of Northern Virginia (Stop Child Abuse Now)

Reference:

Schmidt, S., & Natanson, H. (2020, April 30). With kids stuck at home, ER doctors see more severe cases of child abuse. The Washington Post.

Sarah Kim has been an occupational therapist for over 12 years. She currently works in early intervention for the Infant and Toddler Connection of Fairfax- Falls Church. She also volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for SCAN (Alexandria/Arlington). Email Sarah at: sarah.kim2@fairfaxcounty.gov

The post The Unspoken Realities of Child Abuse during a Pandemic appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.

The presence of an engaged service coordinator who understands the role and skillfully conducts the  many responsibilities of the position ensures a well-coordinated approach to EI service delivery. It is widely acknowledged in the EI field that families have the right to high-quality, individualized EI services; our field must commit to including service coordination in this acknowledgement by ensuring that the professionals who provide this service receive the attention, understanding, respect, and resources they need and deserve. (DEC and ITCA, 2020, p 10)

Wow. This quote is from the summary of the Service Coordination and Early Intervention – Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and IDEA Infant & Toddler Coordinators Association (ITCA) Joint Position Statement which was recently released in December 2020. It’s a powerful message for our field that’s intended to help us leave behind the unfortunate idea of service coordinators as simply paper pushers. It signals to leaders, administrators, and team members, including families, that service coordinators (SCs) are vitally important professionals who play key roles in the delivery of quality early intervention (EI). It’s about time. I’m proud to have been a part of the development of this statement and eager to spread the word.

A Joint Call to Action

The statement was written, reviewed, and finalized as a collaboration between DEC and ITCA. It represents the voice and beliefs of EI professionals from multiple disciplines who are members of DEC and Part C coordinators across the country. Together, these groups came to the conclusion that we needed a strong Call to Action in support of service coordinators and specific information about the knowledge, skills, beliefs, expertise, roles, and responsibilities of professionals who provide service coordination to encourage consistency across our field.

What Can You Do?

Let’s break down the four recommendations in the Call to Action and consider how to move the dial forward.

#1: States and local programs should review and align current competencies to the indicators in the Knowledge and Skills for Service Coordinators (KSSC) document.

In an appendix, the KSSC outlines six knowledge and skill areas that are essential for service coordinators, including: infant and toddler development, family-centered practices, leadership and teaming, coordination of services, transition, and professionalism. Take some time to read it and compare it to guidance or competencies your program uses when hiring and training SCs. If you don’t have program-level competencies, consider adopting these.

#2: Leaders who hire, supervise, and mentor service coordinators must have a thorough understanding of the expertise and needs of these professionals. This understanding is essential to ensure that compensation aligns with the level of responsibility expected of service coordinators. Service coordinators also should have appropriate administrative support, reflective supervision, and resources to successfully manage the workload, navigate changes in policies and procedures, and, most importantly, partner with families.  

This recommendation focuses on leadership and administrative support, which traditionally varies greatly across EI programs. If you are a leader, be honest with yourself and reflect on what you understand. Can you specifically explain what the SCs in your program do and what they need? If you find holes in your knowledge or how your program functions, make a plan to address them starting today. A few ideas:

• Ask your SCs what they need and how your program can meet this recommendation, then work together to set goals.
• Schedule regular meetings with service coordinators to touch base, identify needs, and collaborate toward goals.
• Provide specific info about policy changes and what they mean. Invite input and be flexible when you can.
• Check in regularly about workloads.
• Be available for regular planned and unplanned reflective supervision.

#3: States and programs must consider multiple factors when determining workload size to ensure that service coordinators can manage the roles and responsibilities outlined in this joint position statement. The factors to consider include (1) the number of families served per service coordinator, (2) the varying levels of need experienced by families, (3) the model of service coordination implemented in the state/program, (4) the need for administrative support and supervision, and (5) the level of responsibility, educational background, and any specific expertise required of service coordinators in a given state or program.

This recommendation strongly encourages programs to use a multi-factorial view when determining workloads for service coordinators, rather than simply relying on “caseload” numbers which often fail to reflect the complexity and individualized nature of the work. If you are a leader, take a hard look at how your program operates, check in with your staff, and make adjustments to make the work more manageable. If you are a service coordinator, examine your workload and talk with your supervisor about what is going well and where you need support. Bring your creative ideas to the meeting and work together to tackle this recommendation. You might not be able to change the number of referrals coming in, but there are often smaller changes that can be made to improve the situation.

#4. Additional research is needed to identify recommended practices specific to service coordination, which could be guided by the KSSC document. Research also needs to address how these practices would be implemented with families and how service coordinators would be trained to use these practices during preservice and inservice training.

This might sound like a recommendation for academics, but academics need EI programs to work with to conduct research. Reach out to your local university to initiate conversations about research and service coordination. Encourage faculty to share the position statement with their students. Building partnerships with faculty not only benefits the students you may share during field placements, but could also have a positive impact on the field if you work together to learn more about best practices.  

I encourage you to take the time to read the full position statement and share it (or the Executive Summary) with at least two other people. Share it with your staff or with colleagues, other SCs, contractor agencies, leadership, families, and higher education faculty. Start thinking about how you can use it in your program or state.

Let’s answer the call for action by dedicating some intentional time and energy to our service coordinators. They deserve it.

How can you use the position statement in your program? Who will you share it with?

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You’ve worked really hard this year. You’ve stretched to fit into a mold of providing early intervention (EI) that was unlike any you’d ever experienced before. You struggled, you persisted, and you succeeded. You did it because you love what you do. You also did it because you love the families.

This new video, Parents and Early Intervention, from the Early Intervention Training Program at the University of Illinois is like a gift to all EI practitioners for the hard work you’ve done this year. It reminds us about the power of high quality intervention and how important our partnership with families can be. I know you know this, but it sure is nice to hear it from a family. Now, take 7:59 minutes to meet the Warren family and hear their story. I guarantee it’ll make your day.

See, doesn’t that do your heart good?

So yes, this may have been one of the most challenging years we’ve faced as a field, but when other businesses and services closed, EI did not. You continued to support families, reaching them virtually, checking on them by phone, and working together in ways that were new, different, creative, and inspiring. Now, as you reflect on this past year, ask yourself:

When you think of families you have supported, what do you hope they say about their EI experience?

Type your reflections in the comments below.

*Thank you to EITP and the Warren Family for sharing their story!*

For more videos featuring families’ experiences, visit the Families’ Experiences in EI page on the EI Video Library.

The post A Gift for You – New “Parents and Early Intervention” Video from EITP Illinois appeared first on Early Intervention Strategies for Success.

When talking to parents and caregivers, it can be helpful to ask them what they know about temperament and assess their understanding of how their temperament matches (or doesn’t match!) their child’s. Parents may be able to talk about their child’s response to different environments, sensory preferences or reaction to change and may not have thought about their own response. Parents and caregivers may not be able to recognize ways in which their own temperaments impact the behavior of their child.

What is Temperament?

Temperament is generally defined as consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. One key concept to remember is that temperament is biologically based, not made up of characteristics that are chosen. As such, an individual does not have the ability to change their temperament but rather use their knowledge to adapt to the environment. As an example, for individuals who become overwhelmed by noise, the volume of the television or radio could be turned down, voice tones can be adapted and strategies for calming in loud environments can be taught. Conflict can arise in the parent-child relationship when a parent perceives a child is acting in a particular way “on purpose” or “to make them (the parent) upset.” It is important to recognize that a child’s behavior is often a reflection of his or her temperament. Like many other developmental skills, parents need to be able to teach their children how to appropriately respond to their internal triggers.

Parent and caregiver understanding of how to support a child’s temperament style is crucial in the development of social-emotional skills. When parents can help children adapt to their environment and understand their own preferences, children will be better prepared to adapt to different environments using coping skills and resources available.

Having Conversations about the Parent’s Temperament

I often get questions about how to have conversations with parents and caregivers about temperament. Beginning by asking questions can be a good place to start. Helping parents to gain insight about their own temperament can help them to be more in tune with the actions of their child. Oftentimes, parents have insight into their child but may not have thought about their own preferences or strengths. Parents may not recognize the role that their temperament plays in the dynamic of the relationship with their child. Some questions that could be helpful to ask parents include:

• How do you manage your emotions?
• What are your sensory preferences (e.g. light, sound, etc.)?
• How do you respond to change?
• How do you communicate your wants and needs?

When parents and children have mismatched temperaments, strain in the parent-child relationship can be magnified. Parents may incorrectly attribute differences in interaction style to a child’s developmental delay, ascribing intent behind behavior or believing a child can simply change his or her temperament. Parents may not be aware of their own needs or have the capacity to understand how to adjust in order to have their needs met. When mismatched temperaments are not understood, parents may expect more of their child or believe that their child can change their behavior independently. This can lead to frustration and increased stress for parents. In addition, parents may feel as though they do not have the ability to meet their child’s needs or parent effectively. Children rely on their parents to be emotional co-regulators. This means that especially when children are young, they look to their parents to model how to manage uncomfortable emotions, changes to routine and internal triggers. When parents are calm, children can de-escalate more quickly. As children learn to understand their own temperaments, they can build their abilities to navigate different situations and interactions and become more effective in developing social-emotional regulation.

Talking about the Child’s Temperament

As providers, when parents talk about the ways in which they interact with their children, we can then begin to ask questions to help identify children’s temperament styles and explore which interventions are available to build family capacity. Once a parent can begin tuning in to the child’s unique temperament, the parent can then work to develop strategies for supporting the child’s needs. Here are some questions that you could help the parent to consider when trying to understand their child’s temperament:

• How does my child express their feelings?
• How does my child engage in play?
• How does my child respond when they experience discomfort?
• How does my child react to change?
• What does my child do when going through transitions?

When parents are in tune with their child’s temperament, they are able to support their child’s behavior more effectively. Parents can then understand their child’s needs to provide opportunities for learning new coping skills.

When children are young, it is important for parents to give a lot of support in helping their work through challenges. As children get older and can understand their own temperament style and what they need to be successful, the interactions become more balanced. When parents and caregivers are able to understand the ways in which temperament plays a role in the behavior and interactions of their children, stress is reduced and successful intervention strategies can be realized.

Now that you have some more tools to understand temperament, how can you help parents recognize and respond to their child’s unique characteristics?

Share your ideas by leaving a comment below!

For more information about this topic, check out Naomi’s 2-part webinar series on the VA Early Intervention Professional Development Center:

Foundations of Social Emotional Development: Temperament – Part II

Foundations of Social Emotional Development: Attachment – Part I

Also, be sure to visit the Social-Emotional Development topic page!

Naomi Grinney, LCSW has worked in early intervention for the past five years. Prior to working in EI, Naomi worked as a community-based mental health crisis response provider, as social worker in a psychiatric hospital and as a behavioral interventionist at a residential treatment center. Naomi is passionate about supporting the social emotional development of children and building family capacity and has worked with kids and families for twenty years. As the parent of a child who received Early Intervention services, Naomi brings a unique perspective to her role in providing tools and resources to empower parents in supporting their child’s development. Naomi can be reached at naomi.grinney@fairfaxcounty.gov. 

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