You might think this goes without saying, but with high caseloads and constant travel between visits, it can be a real challenge to meet all IFSP team members. Try to chat by phone or email to get to know each other and make a positive connection.<\/p>\n
Communicate Regularly Keep each other in the loop and touch base often to avoid miscommunications. It can be difficult for the service coordinator to stay in the loop when the provider sees the family more frequently, so the provider can touch base to help the service coordinator know when important changes happen. The service coordinator can also make a concentrated effort to keep regular contact with the family and service provider to ensure that he\/she knows when IFSP reviews are needed, links to other resources are necessary, etc. Communication will work best when both sides are trying.<\/p>\n Be Respectful<\/strong><\/p>\n Service providers must understand the key role service coordinators play and avoid treating them like “paper pushers.”\u00a0On the other hand, the service coordinator must be an active team member who participates in and stays knowledgeable about intervention practices, developmental disabilities, community resources, and facilitating teams.<\/p>\n Follow-Up and Follow-Through<\/strong><\/p>\n Do what you say you’ll do. This is one of the biggest complaints and frustrations among team members. A team member learns to trust your knowledge and skill by seeing what you do so be mindful of providing good services to the family and to your other team members.<\/p>\n Celebrate Together!<\/strong><\/p>\n Service coordinators and service providers share the experiences of supporting families. They can come together to share in the child’s and family’s success. They can also share frustrations and work together to solve problems so that success happens for every family!<\/p>\n Because early intervention is a complicated system, there are lots of things that can get in the way of maintaining a good\u00a0partnership among team members, such as lack of time to work together, disagreements about services, problems with funding or reimbursement for services, etc. etc. Facilitating team cohesion is one of the roles of the service coordinator and takes active effort to make sure that everyone is talking to and supporting everyone else. The service provider also has to always keep the service coordinator in mind when changes may be needed to the IFSP or when the family needs additional resources. The most successful partnership are build on this mutual effort. Perhaps one of the most important things to remember is this – when the partnership doesn’t work well, it affects the child and family. To have the most effective early intervention system, we have to all work together!<\/p>\n What other strategies do you have for when\u00a0the partnership\u00a0breaks down? What do you do each day to work successfully with your service providers & service coordinators?<\/strong> Share an example of when you’ve worked successfully with a team member!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A strong, comfortable, and trusting partnership between the service coordinator and the service provider is so important for a cohesive\u00a0early intervention system. Without it, you have IFSP services ending without IFSP reviews or\u00a0outcomes being\u00a0“met” but not indicated on the plan. You have frustrated team members who feel that families are not getting the support they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[139,11,16,17],"tags":[37,50,62,67,95,104,112,115],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-ifsp-development","category-service-coordination","category-teamwork-2","tag-collaboration","tag-early-intervention","tag-home-visits","tag-implementation","tag-relationships","tag-service-coordination-2","tag-strategies","tag-teamwork","clearfix"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.veipd.org\/earlyintervention\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Family-2-therapists_compressed-300x225.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n