Observing and Interacting with Families and Children in Your Setting:

 

The child and family that I have been observing this past week were “Shawn” and his mom “Dawn.  Shawn is an 11-year-old that has Cerebral Palsy (CP).  Shawn has been at the center since he was 2 months old and started Early Intervention while at the center.  I thought that talking with a child and parent that were older and have used the Early Intervention (EI) program would be a great way to find out if it worked for them and how the center dealt with the EI program even 10 years ago. 

Shawn and his parents were told that he would never be able to walk and that therapy would not help him.  However, the staff at the center and Dawn did not believe this for a minute.  Dawn with the help of the owner, Michelle, got into contact with an area EI program and had the therapists come out and evaluate Shawn for themselves.  I learned from Dawn the importance of making sure that as an educator I work with the parents and make sure that I am there for them when they are going through the EI process.  I understood that parent need our support but after talking with her and finding out how much she appreciated the support of Michelle throughout the process was outstanding to me.  From my understanding, Michelle was doing an assessment on Shawn when he was still an infant and noticed that he was not responding to sounds and his eyes were glazing over and mentioned this to mom.  At first mom did not want to believe this information but after going to the doctor she came back and told Michelle that she was right and that they diagnosed him with CP.  Since then they have worked together to get him the EI help he needed and when he started kindergarten he was part of one of the first inclusion classes in his school.  Shawn is now in fifth grade and not only does mom thank the services of EI for the therapy he was getting but the center for supporting her.  Shawn also walks and even plays basketball with his friends when the doctors told him he would never be able to walk.  Everything about this family showed me that Michelle and the family advocate EI services for Shawn and that it definitely helped him became the confident young man that I observed in the after-school program with his friends. 

The first insight that I learned this week was to make sure that I work with the parents and support them throughout the whole process and not just the beginning by helping them get the services but by being there for the family.  I saw that the center and the family were also advocating the services for other families that may need the services.  If Michelle saw that, someone might need services but were not while to learn about the EI program she would asked if the families would be willing to talk to Dawn.  I really thought that it was great that Dawn was so willing to be an advocate herself for the EI services.  I learned from her how important it was to stay up-to-date on the services and even though her son was not getting EI services, anymore she is a big advocate for their services.  The second insight was to never give up on the families even if they are not sure about the services.  To make sure that I am there for them if they have questions and be willing to just be a sounding board if they have questions or concerns.  Sometimes the best thing that families need is someone to listen to them and their concerns about their child and the EI services without an opinion.  I have to thank Dawn and Michelle for showing me that listening is a big part of being an advocate and not just talking about the services.

Observing and Interacting with Program Director and other Administrative Staff.

 

For this module, I had the pleasure of observing the director and the assistant director of the center that I have been observing.  The assistant director is Ms. Kate who is also the 4-year-old preschool teacher that I was able to observe for the last module.  Ms. Tina is the center director, has been working in the field for over 16 years, and has been the director at Little Steps Big Steps preschool center for the past 3 years.  During my time with Ms. Kate and Ms. Tina, I was able to watch no only interactions with the children that were already receiving early intervention services but with a child that they were assessing and thought would need the services.  After they were done with the assessment process, I was allowed to sit in the meeting with the parents and see how they dealt with the parents that have a hard time believing that their child needed care.

The best insight that I received during these past two weeks was how important it is to make sure that the administrative staff and parents have a good relationship.  I say this because without this relationship the parents would not have been open to the care that their child may need.  They understood that the staff was just looking out for the best interest of the child.  I think that it was important for the staff and the parents to work together and find the help that the little girl needed.  I was also able to see how the staff was able to have all the information about early intervention that the family would need and even was able to answer the questions that they had.  To me, I think my biggest challenge would have been in making sure that I had all the information available and on hand for the parents, which I thought was the best thing that they could do for the family.  Another thing that I noticed in the office was that they had a stack of pamphlet about early intervention and the program for cases just like this that they could give out at a moment notices. 

When putting my plan into action I plan on working with the directors at this center because they have great ideas about how to involve the families in early intervention.  I am hoping that they can help me work with other centers in the community about getting the word out about how important it is to work with different companies that deal in early intervention.  While I was going to other centers they did tell me that they have children that use the services but that they do not have information available for families on hand that may need it.  I am hoping also to work with Early Steps, the early intervention program that is part of the Florida DCF. 

I am open to any suggestion from my colleagues about how they would incorporate early intervention to their program.

Module 2 Blog: Observing Professionals and Colleagues working with children using EI services

I was able to observe and interview this week the teachers in the 3 and 4-year-old classroom.  Both of the teachers have a child that is using the Early Intervention program and had nothing but good things to say about the program.  In the 3-year-old classroom, I talked with Ms. Jessica; she has been working in the field for about 10 years and is a mother of four.  In her class, she has a child that I will call “Mark” that has cerebral palsy (CP); he was born with and has a physical and occupational therapist that comes to the center to work with him.  I was able to observe the physical therapist working with Mark on the day that I was there.  While some therapist work with the children in different rooms she did not, she wanted to stay in the room because that is where Mark felt the most comfortable.  This was great for him because not only did he practice holding toys but the other children in the classroom were also encouraging him.  As you can probably tell the center, where he is at could be called an inclusion center.  The do not discriminate and the other children do not even see that Mark cannot not do some of the same things that they can to them he is just a friend. 

Ms. Jessica is great with Mark and the other children.  As I interviewed her, I was able to ask her if the other children or parents ever treated Mark differently.  Her response was NO, they all love Mark and he is a happy go lucky child, which I witnesses first hand.  She told me that he was born with CP and has come to the center since he was 5 months old.  The teachers, parents, and children just think of him as another child and treat him like everyone else.  I asked if they ever had a problem with the EI services while Mark has been there.  She informed me that EI was very helpful to Mark’s parents and are the ones that suggested coming to the center so that the parents can continue to work and that he can get the care that he needs.  He will be going to a public school program soon and the parents are more worried about what will happen when he goes to that school.  I asked about the public school he will go to and I found out that while it is a public school it is a school for children that have special needs that have their own therapist on site and that he will continue to get the care that he needs.  I was so excited to be able to observe in Ms. Jessica’s class because it was wonderful to see all of the children work together and help out when not only Mark could not reach something but they also helped each other.  This showed me that Ms. Jessica was a great teacher that has taught all of the children to not only share but to care about each other and to treat everyone the same.

The only challenge that I saw in this classroom was that it did not have the proper handicap accessible bathrooms for Mark to use.  He is at the beginning stages of potty training, he was arm braces to help him walk, and there really was not anything in the bathroom for him to hold on to.  Yes, Ms. Jessica did go in there and help him but I think that it needs help so that when he gets further in the training he can go to the bathroom by himself.  She told me that the director is working on updated the bathrooms so that they all have handrails so that he can go in there by himself.  I thought that was great because they were trying to make the situation for him better. 

The other classroom that I observed in was with Ms. Kate, she is the teacher in the 4-year-old classroom.  She has been a teacher for 20 years and enjoys working with the preschool children.  The child in her class that is using EI services is seeing a speech therapist because he has a stuttering problem and the parents are not sure why.  The therapist comes in once week and they practice pronouncing words and letters.  I did not get to witness the therapy session but I did get to observe how Ms. Kate worked with “James.”  She was great with him when he started to talk to fast is when he would stutter and she would tell him to slow down start over and it worked for him when he talked slower the stuttering was not even there.  She informed him that by working with him he has come a long away and the speech therapist that has been working with him has helped him and the family so much.

I really enjoyed my observations this week and I am looking forward to all the information that the directors and EI personal can tell me about their program in the coming weeks.  I think that in the coming weeks I will be asking the professionals how they came to work with the EI program and if they had any suggestions for other centers on how to get EI services for children in their programs.