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.