Sharing What Works in Supporting Infants & Toddlers and the Families in Early Intervention
As an early interventionist, you are in a help giving profession and you want to ensure that you are offering families help that is relevant to the family’s needs. You can achieve that goal by meeting parents where they are when you first engage with them and build from there.
A large component of meeting parents where …
You are committed to helping families practice using intervention strategies during your visits. You truly believe that’s an important part of the intervention process. You’re very aware of your own interactions during visits and try hard not to “hog” all of the child’s attention. You redirect the child’s attention from you back to the parent …
While working through the emotions that come with parenting a child with disabilities, there was also a steep learning curve. A journey of awareness that I had to go through in preparation to parent my child. As the mother of a child with disabilities, my journey has included emotions that many professionals would easily recognize …
It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m banging my head on the steering wheel after my home visit. Why? Because I’ve spent the last hour coaching this family to stop giving their two year old a bottle when she can drink from a sippy cup, straw, and an open cup. It’s not like we haven’t worked on …
Think about the following perspectives during the Assessment for Service Planning and IFSP development process:
Team Members ArriveSC: I arrive to facilitate the assessment for service planning and IFSP development for Jacoby. I meet Franklin, occupational therapist, and Maria, developmental specialist. We all walk in and I introduce Marilyn and Kevin (Jacoby’s mother and father) to Franklin …
On the blog, we often speak from the perspective of the EI professional. Switching up this “voice” a bit is not only fun, but it may help us understand more about the culture of some of our families. The tips I will share are from the millennial parent’s viewpoint in hopes of using their interpretation …
Teaming and collaboration are what we DO, right? We use teaming practices everyday as we connect with other professional team members to support the family in achieving their goals for their child. We understand that we’ll do our best work when we collaborate with caregivers as equal team members, valuing their perspectives and priorities on …
During the intake visit, Elaine explains the early intervention (EI) process to Jaxon’s parents. First, she tells them that they are an equal and valued part of the EI team and she encourages them to be active participants in all aspects of the process. Then, when Jaxon’s father asks which services his son will receive …
Ever had one of those experiences where you realize that, while you think you did your best, you completely forgot what you were supposed to do? Ever had that experience on an intervention visit?
I had that experience recently…I was on a first visit with a family and was planning to set the stage for how …
In last week’s post, which was Part 1 in this series, I began trying to translate the DEC Recommended Practices for Interaction into practices we can use with caregivers. Rather than focusing on how we can implement these practices with children, we need to really think about how to help parents, child care providers, siblings, and …
