LunchShop/DinnerShop Series: First Steps and the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP)

Stella: [00:00:00] Well. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Kentucky SPIN’s Lunch Shop. Our topic today is First Steps and the Individualized Family service Plan. We are so happy you have joined us. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we get started, you will notice on your dashboard, there are a couple of things I want to point out.

If you have a question throughout the presentation today, you can type that in the question box. And we will stop periodically throughout the hour to make sure that we’ve answered anyone’s questions. Also, all of the handouts, are provided for you under the handouts tab that you are more than welcome to download.

But I will let you know that we will follow up with an email, after today’s presentation, that all of those handouts will be included along with a certificate of attendance. And so you’ll receive that in an additional email, if you don’t have time to download [00:01:00] those during the presentation. Following today’s webinar, you will also be prompted to complete a survey and we would really appreciate your feedback on that as that helps us prepare for other Lunch Shops, throughout our time.

So I want to tell you just a little bit about Kentucky SPIN. Kentucky SPIN is the Special Parent Involvement Network. We are the parent training and information center, which is the PTI, for the state of Kentucky. Each state has a parent training and information center and some even have more than one.

So Kentucky SPIN is Kentucky’s parent training and information center. We are funded by the U.S. Department of Education, under the individuals with disabilities education act, and we have been the parent training and information center since 1988. We provide support, training, and information for children and youth with all types of disabilities, birth through age 26.

We have really been doing a lot [00:02:00] of webinars since COVID-19 began, and so we’re really excited about the information that we have still been able to provide families during this pandemic. Something we do not do is we don’t act as attorneys, but we empower families to effectively advocate for their children.

And we provide peer support to help families access needed information and resources. And we also lend a listening ear. So I’m really excited today for our speaker. I’m not even sure if I introduced myself at the beginning, but I’m Stella Beard. I’m the assistant director for Kentucky SPIN, but we’re very excited to have Angie Casey with us.

She is the First Steps Program Director for New Vista. And I’m sure she can tell you a little bit more about New Vista and what her job role is there. But Angie, can you hear me.

Angie: [00:02:52] I can, can you guys hear me?

Stella: [00:02:55] I think we’re good to go. So thank you so much. I’m going to turn it over to you.

Angie: [00:03:00] Okay. Well, thank you so much for attending today.

I’m looking forward to sharing what we do here at First Steps. But first, Stella did mention that I do work for New Vista. And New Vista is the community mental health center for the bluegrass service region. So that’s Fayette County, which is Lexington and 16 surrounding counties.

We provide mental health services. We provide substance abuse and prevention  services. And, we provide services for individuals that have intellectual and developmental disabilities. We essentially serve all ages, birth to death. DSo we do have an 800 help line number. So if you or anyone in your family or families that you encounter have any mental health substance abuse or folks in their family with intellectual developmental disabilities, you can call our 24-hour help line and they can connect you to the program within New Vista, that could [00:04:00] support you.

And that number is 1-800-928-8000. So New Vista has the Point of Entry contract for First Steps. So we serve as the point of entry for this service area. There are 15 points of entry across the state. So I am the program manager for this region. I would love for you guys that are on, is in the chat box if you can kind of tell me who all is here. I just like to know who I’m talking to and a little bit about, so if you’re a parent, just put parent, if you’re a first steps provider, if you’re a childcare provider, DCBS worker, just kind of let me know who I’m talking to since I’m kind of just talking to my computer right now.

And I hope you guys are doing well doing this during this Covid crisis that we’re under. The information that I share with you today is how First Steps operate typically when we’re not under a pandemic. But I will, if we have time at the end, kind [00:05:00] of share what we’re doing right now.

So Stella has up the objectives. And so today I want you guys to understand the referral and eligibility process for First Steps. Know about our services that we provide, understand the natural environment and why we provide services in a child’s natural environment. Understand the coaching and primary service models which are the two models of service delivery that we use during First Steps.

And we want you to understand the components of an individualized family service plan. What are the different parts? How do we put that together? Who’s involved in that? So, that’s what we’re hoping you’d get out of this today. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions and Stella will let me know as those pop up.

Okay. So you may or may not know that Kentucky First Steps is Kentucky’s early intervention program for children, birth to [00:06:00] age three, who have developmental delays or who have medical conditions that put them at risk for delays. So in order to qualify for First Steps a child has to have a significant delay in at least one area in development.

Or they can have a moderate delay in two areas of development. I’m sure you guys probably know the areas that we’re talking about, are motor skills, communications, self-help, cognitive, and social emotional. If children have an established risk condition, such as down syndrome, spinal bifida, autism.

Those children automatically qualify for our program because we know that they are at risk for having developmental delays due to their diagnosis. Kentucky’s early intervention system, we do operate under some standards and these are the six standards that we operate under. And we’re going to go through those individually through the slides, but First Steps is-family centered,  individualized. We provide evidence-based practices.  We [00:07:00] operate all of our services in the child’s natural environment. Our services are team-based, and we do plan for transition. What happens after the kids age out of First Steps.

Okay. Stella. Next slide Stella.

Stella: [00:07:27] Sorry, Angie. It’s going to be, I think I’m a little delayed. It’ll just take a few minutes of work to pop up.

Angie: [00:07:34] Okay, no problem. So first I want to take you through, what happens after a referral is made. And Stella, did any body respond of who’s here? Before we go through this, this kind of helps me know kind of how to explain the referral process.

Stella: [00:07:53] Absolutely. We do have quite a few folks that have responded. Let me pull that up real quick.

[00:08:00] Hang on one second.

Angie: [00:08:10] You’re fine.

Stella: [00:08:14] It looks like we’ve got some nurses on. We have someone with the administrative office of the courts. We have some family members, a couple of different professionals with administrative office of the court. So I have a wide variety of folks on the call today.

Angie: [00:08:32] Okay, great. So on the attachments, you’ll see that we have, two referral forms on there.

One is just the regular referral form and it says FS1A and then FS1B is the referral form that should be used for DCBS. Because it has more information about, if the child is not in the home, who is the legal guardian of the child and that type of information. So, anyone can make a referral to [00:09:00] First Steps.

It does not require a physician’s referral, so parents can make their own referral. But we do get many referrals from pediatricians, hospitals make use the HANDS program. I mentioned DCBS already. We have tons and tons of referral sources, so if you’re not a DCBS worker, you would use the regular referral form.

You can fax that into us, or you can, there’s also an online referral portal and you can find that on New Vista’s website. And I’ll send the link for that to Stella so she can send that out in the email. If you do sign up for the online portal, if, she said there were some nurses on here, so, if you’re with an office, you would want one username, for the office so that you can collect some data on how many referrals you’ve made to First Steps. You would not be able to get individual information about the children due to privacy, but you could keep a [00:10:00] number of how many referrals you’ve made.

Okay. So now that that’s out of the way, we’ll talk about what happens after you do make that referral.

Stella, can you go back to that slide?

Okay. So once you make a call and the referral is received at our point of entry office, and they’re, like I said, there are 15 points of entry across the state. So if you are not, in this service area, there are other points of entry that you can contact and make that referral.

So once the referral is received, the child and the family is assigned a service coordinator. The service coordinator reaches out to the family to complete a screening and an intake visit with the family. The screening tool that we currently use is the Ages and Stages questionnaire and the Ages and Stages social, emotional. We also have to obtain medical history. And for medical history, we need the most recent well-child visit and immunizations. And so we do have a lot of physicians office that fax that information in when they do make a referral. And that’s super helpful. And that kinda makes [00:11:00] the referral go through faster.

We also have to obtain hearing and vision status. So some children do need a hearing test before we can move forward or if there are vision concerns, we may need an eye exam before we can move forward as well. Well, we do standardized evaluations of all five areas of development. If the child fails the screening, so if the screening shows that there are some potential concerns, we would move them on and we would complete a standardized evaluation.

The tools that we use for that are usually the Bayley Scales, we also use the Battelle for that as well. For eligibility determination, we have child evaluation specialists that review all of the child’s records.

So the referral information that came in, the screening, the medical hearing and vision status, and the information from the standardized evaluation. So we hope that all of that information syncs, that it all kind of links together into showing the same types of concerns or non-concerns. And then they determine [00:12:00] if that’s how it meets the Kentucky definition for eligibility for early intervention services. If the child is eligible, we would schedule them for a family assessment, and I’m gonna  kind of go into a little bit more information about that later. And then we would implement the individualized family service plan, which I’m going to go into more detail.

Okay. Can we can move on.

So I wanted to talk to you about the role of the service coordinator. Because I feel like the role of the service coordinator is probably the most important role in First Steps. And it’s probably the most overlooked and the least known. A lot of families don’t necessarily know what their service coordinator is doing behind-the-scenes or is doing to support their family necessarily. Because a lot of what they do is behind-the-scenes.

 But they’re kind of the one that’s driving the bus, through the First Steps program for that family. And making sure that [00:13:00] they get everything they need. So the service coordinator serves as that point of contact to assist the families through getting the services and getting their needs addressed.

They coordinate all of the earlier intervention services, but they also can coordinate other services. So if the individualized family service plan team meeting determined that services outside of First Steps are needed, the service coordinator can help coordinate those referrals and get those services for the family as well.

They facilitate a timely service delivery. So once we do make the referrals, we are following up to make sure that those services are being completed and that the service providers are showing up and everything’s going well and smooth. And then they’re also continuously seeking additional services or resources that the family could benefit from as well.

Okay. So [00:14:00] here are some of the activities that the service coordinators doing kind of behind-the-scenes and in-front-of-the-scenes, so that you kind of know how busy they are and what they’re doing. So they are coordinating and they’re implementing those screenings and they’re coordinating the evaluations and assessments.

They are the ones that conduct the family assessment to determine what the family’s priorities and concerns are. They’re facilitating all of the IFSP meetings. They assist the family in identifying available service providers, whether that’s with First Steps or outside of First steps.

They coordinate and monitor the timely service delivery of early intervention services, inform families of availability of advocacy services, they coordinate with mental health providers and they also facilitate and develop a transition plan, whether that’s to preschool or other services.

Okay Stella are there any questions about the referral process and [00:15:00] far?

Stella: [00:15:05] I don’t see any questions right now related to that.

Okay, thanks. Okay. So we mentioned that one of the standards for First Steps is that we are family centered. Families identify the individualized family service plan outcomes that determine earlier mentioned services, resources and support during early interventions.

Angie: [00:15:31] The informal outcomes that are on the IFSP actually come from the family assessment. And so that, the family assessment is a routine spaced interview that the service coordinator does with the family or caregiver. And kind of walks through what a typical day is like for that family. From the first person that wakes up to the last person that goes to bed, and tries to find out, what routines are established, if any.

What that typical day [00:16:00] looks like, what’s going well, what is difficult, what can we help with? And at the end of that assessment, we actually come up with some goals that the family wants to work on. And I know there have been some questions from the providers that work with us from time to time,

well, the family hasn’t mentioned that they want to work on this, but I have this concern. And what we have found is that once we can address the family’s priorities and concerns, we get that buy in, because we’re addressing the concerns that are most important to you. If we’re concerned about something that you’re not concerned about, you’re probably not going to invest as much time and energy into that.

And then after we are able to address the family’s priorities or concerns, if they do develop those concerns that a provider might have later, we can always address that at a different time. But we want to make sure that we’re addressing what is most important for that family or caregiver.

An example that I like to give during this family [00:17:00] assessment is, you know, we’ve been able to find out some families that are in severe crisis, and they don’t know how they’re going to have money to buy food for their next meal. And it may be a single mom that’s working two jobs and trying to figure out childcare. And she’s just, you know, her main priority, concern are more just, you know, the basics of living and being safe. And so we’ve got to help her with those concerns and set her up with the appropriate supports and resources so that then we can be able to get, you know, some help for the child if they need it.

So it’s really informative to be able to do that family service plan or that family assessment. And that is the family’s voice on the IFSP as well. These are their concerns and their priorities. Okay.

Stella: [00:17:50] Angie, can you explain real quick.

Angie: [00:17:53] Sure.

Stella: [00:17:53] [inaudible] the ages that [inaudible]

Angie: [00:18:00] I lost you, Stella.

Stella: [00:18:04] I’m sorry. I said, could you just explain the ages for First Steps, the qualifications with the age.

Angie: [00:18:12] Yeah. So First Steps is for children birth to age three. And if they are eligible and receiving services, the services end on their third birthday.

Okay.

So I kind of already hit on this, that, early intervention services are individualized to meet the needs of each child and family. And eligible children will receive an individualized family service plan within 45 days of the referral. So what I mean by individualized, I guess I should have mentioned, I’ve been doing First Steps for many, many years, since the nineties.

So telling my age, and I’ve seen about every kind of change in regulations. And we used to have a lot of [00:19:00] what we would call cookie cutter goals or cookie cutter outcomes. Like the child will say 50 words or the child will use words to get their wants and needs met. And what we want to do is from that family assessment to really have individualized goals. So instead of those cookie cutter goals, their goals that are meaningful. One of my favorite goals is that the mom wanted her child to say, “I love you mommy.” That was meaningful to her and we were able to work on all language development.

We didn’t just focus on those particular words, but that was the goal. That was how she was going to measure success for that outcome. So we want the IFSP piece to be individualized.

Okay. Our services are also team-based. First Steps provides, team-based early intervention services. And the people that make up [00:20:00] that IFSP team are the parent and or guardian and the service coordinator, potential early intervention providers, the evaluator, the person that did the evaluation on the child and anyone else that the parent or guardian chooses to invite to the meeting.

So all of those folks come together. They assess all the information that’s available and they come up with the goals and the services that are needed to meet those goals.

Okay. I wanted to explain a little bit about what parent rights are in our program. And on the attachments there is a copy of the parent right brochure. We do have a parent right handbook that is several pages long. But the brochure does a nice job of kind of explaining the basic of the family rights.

One of the first rights and I mentioned that on the previous slide, is that the IFSP [00:21:00] should be developed within 45 days of when the referral is received. Now I know some of you out there may be saying, well my IFSP wasn’t developed in 45 days, or I’ve heard families tell me that it takes forever to get into First Steps.

And that you know, the 45 days means that we do everything to the best of our ability to get that child from referral to the IFSP. So we have several stages that we have to meet before we can have that IFSP. So if the child is sick and we’re not able to do the evaluation. Or the child fails a hearing test and we need to get a follow up hearing test.

Or the family’s on vacation for a week. I mean, these are things that are out of our control. So sometimes that will extend the 45 day timeline, but if it’s in our control, if it’s a service that we’re supposed to be providing, we should be meeting that 45 day timeline, a hundred percent of the time.

Parents are another, right, is that they’re not only invited, they’re expected to participate in all [00:22:00] IFSP meetings. Appropriate early intervention services for the child and family as described in the IFSP will be provided to all families. So if a service is on your child’s IFSP, but maybe that service is not available right now because of a provider shortage, you still have a right to receive that service.

So that may make you eligible for some compensatory services down the road when a provider becomes available. Confidentiality of personally identifiable information is a huge thing in First Steps because we do fall under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. So we are an educational program, so we also have to follow the FERPA law, which is the Federal Education Privacy Act.

So if you can believe it’s even a little bit more strict than then HIPAA. I know all of us are familiar with HIPAA, but FERPA is even more strict with confidentiality. Parents can refuse the service without it affecting another [00:23:00] service. So this goes back to those priorities and concerns. So if the family’s main concern is speech, for example, and we may have some concerns about fine motor skills and we offer occupational therapy, the family can decline occupational therapy, but still take advantage of getting the speech therapy service.

Another right is that they have a right to receive written prior notice at least five days before any change is proposed or refused. And if the family feels like their rights have been violated, they do have a right to file a formal complaint or mediation or due process.

Okay. Stella.

Okay. I wanted to talk about also the components of the IFSP. Cause I think that’s the main reason that a lot of you signed up is just to learn a little bit more about the [00:24:00] document itself and, and what they all mean. So there is a sample IFSP that is on the attachments as well.

So one of the first sections, that we’re going to talk about because the first couple pages is really just demographic type of things. The present level of development starts at the bottom of page two, and then it goes on to page three. [coughing] Excuse me.

Okay. So the present level of development on the IFSP, that is actually a summary of the evaluations that we have completed on the child. So it is, should be a description of how that child is doing in each area. So what are their skills with their communication? What are their skills with their motor skills?

Ok. [00:25:00] I’m getting a drink of water.

All of these zoom calls has been hard on the voice through all this Covid. I don’t know if you guys can relate to that or not.

So all of the five areas are summarized on the IFSP. There’s also a summary of the health, hearing and vision status. And then a summary of the family’s resources, priorities and concerns.

So if you remember that I mentioned that the family assessment is a parents voice. So the family assessment report is a summary of the family resources, priorities and concerns that’s on there. So these are all of the, this is all the information that the family reports. So present levels are the clinical evaluations that we do, the family resources and priorities and concerns are what the family is reporting to us.

[00:26:00] Then there is an outcome strategy and activities page. And again, these are prioritized by the family during the family assessment. So at the family assessment, we come up with general goals and then at the IFSP if we just determined if they are still concerns and then we make them into formal goals.

And what I mean by formal, in first steps, our outcome has to have one behavior, one criteria or way to measure that outcome, and at least one routine that outcome is applied in.

So the services table on the IFSP indicates what services are authorized for the plan period, as well as a frequency, intensity, and location of services. So this is where, if you’re a service provider or a nurse or a doctor on this page, this is what you’re going to, where you’re going to find that [00:27:00] information, what services they’re getting, how often, and how long.

So within First Steps, services are limited to 36 hours per planned period, which is six months. So the IFSP that we write is for one year, but we do review that every six months. So the services are authorized for a six months period. The 36 hours is total. And that’s if there are multiple services, meaning there’s more than one service provider.

If there’s only one service provider, on that team, then the services are limited to 24 hours. The meeting note is where we describe exactly what was discussed and agreed upon at that meeting. So it really should just be a complete snapshot of everything that was discussed. So that should have a lot of good information in there as well.

And then the IFSP signature page is actually where the parents are going to provide consent for [00:28:00] services, or they can decline consent for services. And then the team members sign their attendance for being at the meeting.

So I’ve been throwing out that word, early intervention services a lot. And in First Steps, all of our services are early intervention services. But they are provided through that coaching and consultative model, with a variety of professionals. And there’s the list there, speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists. We have teacher of the visually impaired, teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. And we have developmental interventionists as well.

So First Steps used to be, I guess confused more so for a therapy agency or a medical type service. And that’s really not what we all are. Like I mentioned, we are under the IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We’re an early intervention program.

We provide these services in a coaching model. So [00:29:00] coaching the family or the caregiver on strategies that they can embed in those daily routines to help their child achieve their outcomes. So that the services are not clinical at all. There are some families that do need those clinical services.

For example, our kids that are medically fragile, you know, they could benefit from some First Step services to work on the developmental delays, but they also may need like, you know, a clinical, medical based physical therapy at a clinic to work on specific medical things that are going on with them.

So all of the services are provided are evidence-based. And evidence based, not only in the practice, you know, the licensure board of the professional, but they’re also evidence-based for early intervention. And that’s where we have some difficulty sometimes finding evidence-based practices for early intervention specifically.

We also work under a primary service provider model. And the primary service provider [00:30:00] model means that we are going to look, as a team, as an IFSP team, at what the family’s main priority and concerns are. The outcomes that are written. Who is the best person on that team to meet with the family most often and to address most of those outcomes.

So that person would become the primary service provider. They’re going to see that family the most. And then the other providers on that team will come less often and act more of a consultant to that team. We do provide all of our services in the child’s natural environment. And natural environment, you know, typically we just say home, daycare, community. And that’s a quick summary. Part C says that the maximum extent possible or appropriate to meet the needs of the child, early intervention services must be provided in natural environments, including the home and community in which children without disabilities participate.

So for, if a child is being seen in a childcare setting, it has to be a [00:31:00] childcare that has typically developing children as well. So if it’s a special needs childcare or a medically fragile childcare, those are not considered natural environments because you don’t find a child without a disability there.

Doing services in a child’s natural environment allows children and families to practice these skills embedded in their daily routines multiple times a day, using what they have available. So if we take toy bags or equipment or things like that into the home we’re taking away that natural environment because we’re taking that away when we leave.

So if we’re using what they have, the toys and the things that they have available in the home that’s left with a family, and they can practice multiple times throughout each day. So just think about the opportunities for growth and learning and progress with that family.

So we are in the process right now of training all of our providers in this coaching model, and so [00:32:00] I wanted to play this video, to kind of show you what first step services are going to be looking like now. So hopefully this video work.

Stella, can you turn up the volume on that?

[external video without audible sound]

Hmm.  are you guys able to hear that? I’m not getting sound.

Stella: [00:33:22] I’m sorry.

Embedded Video: [00:33:26] … Early intervention service provision…

Angie: [00:33:29] There we go.

Embedded Video: [00:33:30] Based on current research, we know that we can have the most positive impact on a child’s development if we use more of  a teams based interventions that support active family engagement.

Interventions that are embedded in natural family routines offer more frequent practice of new skills we’re learning most naturally.

Routines based approach can be challenging for [00:34:00] many providers, but it is well worth the effort. Listen, now, as we hear one provider describe her personal journey from a clinical to routines based approach.

I look back at my professional career, I’ve had the good fortune to have it span the evolution of early intervention as I see it, from the mid-eighties to now. And when I looked back, it was much more of a clinical setting, much more of a rehab medical model where the families brought their child to the clinic, two or three times a week. And with being in a classroom or individual setting. And when I look back on that, I realized that the onus of the responsibility for making a difference in that child’s skills really felt very heavily upon my shoulders because I didn’t have the opportunity, or at the time, the responsibility to share with the family what it was that I was looking for the changes to be made at home. And then [00:35:00] things changed. And then [inaudible] needs and the natural setting most often was a child at home. And so we went into the child’s home, but we took our clinic with us, we took our toy bag with us, and we took our activities and we brought them into the house and we sat down on the floor and everybody joined in then. But I pretty much determined what we were going to be doing, the order we were going to be doing it in. And really didn’t take into consideration what the family’s concerns were, what their priorities were, what the resources were. That was all about my toys and my activities. And then we got into the 2000’s and we were still evolving in terms of becoming early interventionist.

And now we are truly considered early interventionists where we go in to the home and our role is a coaching role. And then instead of bringing in our [00:36:00] toy bag and directing’s the services, we come into the home and we take the time to get to know that family and get to know that established routine. It’s good to know what’s in their toy box, it’s good to know what’s happening.

Do I need to start routines that little person’s doing and what the other person’s not doing? What would the family like for that little person to be doing during that routine and encouraging their participation? And I believe that my therapy is far more effective today than it was 25 years ago because I am in the child’s home. I am using the child’s food, utensils, toys, clothes, their couch cushions, their bike, whatever, we’re using those things and we’re teaching the parents, all of them, what they need to know in order to help that little person grow.

[00:37:00] Now that you’ve had the opportunity to hear from a provider as she describes her paradigm shift, check out part two of this video series to learn more about what early intervention can and should look like.

Angie: [00:37:28] All right, thank you

So what you didn’t see in the first part, or you may have seen the picture but couldn’t hear the audio. The therapist was actually providing service at Chick-fil-A, while the family was eating because the family, one of the outcomes was that they wanted him to use words to make choices at mealtime.

So that’s kinda how we embedded services in the [00:38:00] natural environment as well as in regular routines. So when can services begin after the IFSP? So, because a written notice is a federal requirement and it’s a parent right, we, we have to give the family a written prior notice. So services cannot start before five calendar days after the IFSP.

And then they cannot begin any later than 30 days, because we do have a requirement to have services start timely after that IFSP is written.

So I mentioned earlier, the IFSPs are written for one year, and they are reviewed every six months. But the parents can request a team meeting anytime. So if there’s big changes or any regressions or the family feels like a change needs to be made to the plan, or if they just want to regroup and kind of hear about what, where they feel [00:39:00] like the progress with the child is, we can meet any time.

Eligibility is redetermined annually. So every year we do another assessment to see where that child’s development is, to determine that they still meet Kentucky’s definition of developmental delay. And we also update the health and vision and hearing status as well. And we redetermine the eligibility for that child at that time.

Before I start into transition, is there any questions Stella for the IFSP?

Stella: [00:39:43] I don’t see any questions right now.

Angie: [00:39:46] Okay. So once the child is getting ready to turn three, we have a transition IFSP. And that meaning so that they can have that smooth and seamless transition out of [00:40:00] First Steps and into something else. So, the transition is developed. The transition plan should be developed no more than nine months, and no less than 90 days before their third birthday.

We want the families to have plenty of time to make a decision on what services they want to take advantage of, so that on their third birthday, they can start that next phase, that they don’t have to wait for several weeks to do eligibility and things like that. So with parent permission, a representative from the local education agency, we call them LEA’s in First Steps, we use lots of acronyms.

So if I’ve used any acronyms that you don’t know, let me know cause I apologize. It just rolls off the tongue. But we invite someone from the local education agency or the public preschool to come to the transition meeting if the families would like to meet with them. We can also invite other agencies, headstart, we can invite private schools, private therapy agencies whatever the family [00:41:00] is interested in, we can invite those representatives to come to the transition meeting to provide the family with information. The transition plan and meeting is really just an informational meeting. Is for that family to be able to ask questions, find out information so that they have all the information they need to make the best choice for them for when their child turns three.

So I get asked a lot, what happens if a child does not qualify for First Steps? So, if they pass the screening, the Ages and Stages, if you remember back to the beginning, we talked about that. So the first thing we do is we, we do the screening and the Ages and Stages to see if there are potential concerns.  So the parent and the guardian has the right to request an evaluation, even if the screening has passed. So if the screening is passed, but your gut is saying, my child needs help, you can still ask for that evaluation regardless of if the [00:42:00] screening is passed. There are some potential things that you would want to know about making that request.

So you would probably want to talk to one of the child evaluation specialist to see if they feel like it would be beneficial to go ahead and do the evaluation. And what I mean by that, is it’s really boils down to, your child’s age at the time and what the testing, the protocols are asking. So like if your child is 20 months, for example, and you’re having some concerns that they’re not saying quite enough words. And we go ahead and do an evaluation with them now, they might not qualify and then they can’t be evaluated again for six months.

But if you waited just like a month or a month and a half to do the evaluation, there might be more likelihood of your child qualifying because there’s more things on that protocol that they would have to pass. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Hopefully. But if the child does pass the screening, the service coordinator will provide the family with [00:43:00] some home strategies that they can work on.

And then if they choose to, they can call back and they can be rescreened every two to three months. Now, if we do the big evaluation and your child doesn’t qualify, if the child is under 12 months when they’re evaluated and they can be reevaluated after three months has passed, if the child is over 12 months, they can not be reevaluated for six months.

So that’s why I was like, you might want to talk to that child evaluation specialist to see where they would be age-wise on that questionnaire, if they feel like it would be beneficial to go ahead and do that or not.

We also provide access to other community resources that families might be eligible for. So if we feel like that they would not qualify for First Steps, but they have a medical card and they may qualify for EPSDT services, we can make referrals to those programs as well. So we, we really try if the child does not qualify, we really do try to let them [00:44:00] know when they can reapply for another evaluation,  give them home strategies or referrals to other agencies. So we really try hard not to just end services and not give them anything that would be beneficial. I’m finishing a little early, so I don’t know if there are questions. If you have questions, type them into the chat bar. But our number, if you want to make a referral to First Steps, that 271-9448 is our direct line here at our Point of Entry office.

And my direct extension is 5470 and my email is there as well. So I’m going to go ahead and kind of give you a little heads up about how we are operating right now under the Covid  pandemic. I don’t have slides for it,  cause when I made this PowerPoint, we were not under all of these social distancing precautions at that time.

But we are right now, new referrals coming in are on hold, until we can [00:45:00] go to our next phase, which the next phase is, has the proposal has been written and submitted. So we’re just waiting for approval from the state. But the next phase will be, teleintervention services for, evaluations as well.

So, right now, children that have an active IFSP, they have the option of receiving telehealth or teleintervention services. Or they have the option of waiting for face to face services to resume. The next step will be to add that telehealth intervention service for evaluations. The third phase will be, face to face in the office or clinic type setting.

And then face to face in the homes are probably several months away. And we don’t have any kind of dates set for the phases right now. So, right now we still are accepting referrals, they’re just kinda sitting in the holding pattern right now. But we’re going to address them as soon as we are able to move on to the [00:46:00] next step.

Right. Are there any questions?

Stella: [00:46:09] I don’t see any, there was a question I’m going to say to you privately. But I think, I think that was great and I just wanted to say to everyone, I will be sending the PowerPoint out from you where they can rewatch that video if they choose. So that will help with the little issue that we had going on during the video.

So everyone will get the PowerPoint, they will get all of the handouts, and so they can rewatch that video.

Angie: [00:46:37] Okay.

Stella: [00:46:42] Just take a few minutes afterwards to complete our evaluation. And, Angie, is there anything else you want to mention?

Angie: [00:46:53] No, I just thank you all for listening and if you have any questions or anything, feel free to reach out to me via email or [00:47:00] phone, either one. I am working from home mostly right now, so email is probably the best way to reach me. So, I do work from the office one or two days a week, but I can have access to email all the time.

Stella: [00:47:16] Great. I will keep this open for just a few minutes. So the folks that want to go ahead and download handouts, they can, but if you’ve already done that, you’re free to leave the webinar now and just complete our evaluation at the end. And Angie, thank you again so much for participating.

Angie: [00:47:34] Thanks for having me on.

Stella: [00:47:37] All right. Bye bye everyone. Have a great weekend.

Angie: [00:47:40] Bye.