Next Steps in Your Journey After Early Access Services - 2017 Together We Can Conference
- Okay, well I'm Kari as Kim mentioned,
and the number one reason why I came into my job,
because I don't have an education background,
is because I have a son who has special needs,
and he transitioned through Early ACCESS.
It was Early Intervention then, into an IEP,
which was Individual Education Plan
in a preschool setting.
And so I kind of walk the walk
and I understand some of the anxiety
that can go along with it.
My big big concern for him, believe it or not,
was, I don't want him to ride the bus.
I do not want him to ride the bus,
that he's too little, he wasn't walking yet.
I'm not going to let him ride the bus.
Well, I'll have you know, because he
was the youngest of four,
he began to walk
about two weeks after preschool,
because guess what?
Everybody was haulin' him around.
So then he started to walk.
We were walking past the buses on the way to our car.
And he wanted to get on the bus,
and that was when I realized,
who's holding who back, here?
This little guy is doing, is ready to go.
It was me that wasn't ready to go.
So sometimes I have, throughout the years now,
I have learned that Jordan has been my guide.
He is usually a little more prepared than I am.
But we do have certain things in our materials
that can help you prepare your child
for that transition too.
- And I'm Susan Becker and,
I am an educator
but I also came to the role
because of my child.
And my child was Joshua.
And this happens sometimes to me, so I'm sorry.
He passed away three years ago,
but backing clear up to when,
and he was 14 when he passed away.
But he was, had a condition called
Smith-Magenis Syndrome.
And he was born with lots of challenges.
And so navigating that was difficult.
Kari was my parent coordinator,
so she helped me through all those things,
and she would come over for coffee, and we would talk.
But again, as Kari mentioned,
the help through the transition from B to C,
or C to B, was very scary,
because he'd been my little baby at home,
and in my little world, and it was difficult
to have him go out.
We'd had all the practitioners coming to the house,
and that was comfortable, and I knew them.
But then when I sent him out
knowing that he was going to be with different people,
it was scary, but all went well
and everyone had good hearts,
and the bus, I agree, was very scary.
- That was his favorite time too.
(Kari laughing) - So it was, and buses
became his thing,
so it was good that I let him go.
You all have a packet in front of you,
and we put a lot of information in here
that we want to, you to go home with,
so we're going to kind of go through that with you,
and then we're going to start our presentation.
So on the right hand side of your folder,
I just want to show you a few things.
This bookmark is something that we give out.
On the back has all the pictures
of the parent coordinators from the Heartland area,
so if you're in that area you can
kind of match the face.
And we've got contact information.
If you're from out of the area,
and you don't, aren't in the Heartland,
please make a point to let us know
and we will make sure you find out
your parent coordinator's person.
Then we also have this purple card,
and this is handy because you have
all the different people coming in.
Some are speech therapists and occupational therapists
and teachers and all those things,
and this purple card,
we can put your name,
you can put their name on it
and put it on your refrigerator.
And you always have their name
and their phone number accessible,
so that's a handy piece to have.
This flyer we have is just a handy reference
to what we do.
Talks about our services, so if you're not sure
what all we can help you with,
you can check into that.
We have a green
bookmark as well
that goes with the Parents' Rights book
that you receive when you've had meetings,
and it's the book with all the law of the state.
This is just a handy thing to go with,
here you go.
This is just handy to keep with it
because it's got some of the highlighted pages
so that you can find some things
that might be helpful to know.
And that wasn't in the envelope.
Then we also have more about the Parents' Rights Summary.
- Yeah, and on the brochure,
on the Family and Educator Partnership brochure,
these are Literacy Fun on the Run cards
that we created.
I know how busy, and we know, how busy families can be.
And you know with my other children,
I always remembers having more time
to sit down and read a book.
And I didn't as much with Jordan,
and I always kind of felt guilty about that,
until we created these cards.
And suddenly I thought, you know what?
I was doing these things with him,
and that was incorporating literacy throughout his day
in a more functional way for busy parents.
So it gives you some different ideas
as you're on the go, to try to work on
some of those things naturally,
in the settings that you're in.
Heartland gives out Working Together for Children.
It's very good and it really gets into
a lot of the problem solving things
that teams go through, to try to
when they're doing the evaluation.
It also gets into special education
and what different parents' roles are.
And we also have that information in our steps,
which we're going to be going through next.
But it does have a commonly asked question section,
so make sure you check that part out too.
And then of course with the Literacy Fun on the Run
each of you got one of the books, didn't you?
The brown bear books?
We try to give those out to families
when we go on our home visits.
Typically what we're able to do a lot of the time,
because we live in a more metro area,
is because they're closer in proximity,
when I get a referral from a Early ACCESS team,
I'll typically go to their home
and bring things like this, so that they have
some things to already start working on with their child.
And then we also bring a informational,
organizational book.
Most of the different AEAs have something
along these lines, they may not look exactly the same.
Eventually they may, but not right now.
But when you talk to your
family and educator partner
make sure you ask about what their resources are.
- Our hope for today is that we can go through
the Next Step brochures that are in your packets.
We're going to identify your role
on the child's transition team,
and determine resources that can
assist you in the process.
So your child's turning three.
It's an exciting time, lots to look forward to.
But if you have a child with some special needs,
it might be kind of scary.
As we've already talked, services are going to be
no longer in the home.
We need to start talking about what comes next.
The first is, first in our steps is
beginning the transition.
And before your child turns three,
you'll get notified by your support person from the AEA
that it's time to start planning for transition.
This might happen at their meeting,
their yearly meeting when they're around two,
and you start making plans.
What's going to be, happen next?
What's it going to look like?
And in our folder that you have,
there's some worksheets that you can work through
that kind of help you think about those things.
What are your strengths and vision,
the first side says Individual Strengths
and Family Vision Worksheet.
So what kinds of things are you wanting for your child?
Where do you think your child
would be the best location?
What kind of services?
So you just start thinking through all those things,
and talking about what things would be next.
On the other side, Special Information.
What are your child's special abilities?
What kinds of things are their favorite things?
For my son, we had to put down buses.
Favorite foods, chicken nuggets was about all we had.
So think through those things,
and as this happens, your role,
what is our family's role?
You've got to find out what does
transition mean for your child?
What are my child's strengths and challenges?
What are my hopes and dreams for my child,
and that's always kind of a hard one.
What are your hopes and dreams?
You know, maybe, and most often,
it's that they're happy and healthy, right?
You want 'em to be happy and healthy.
Then you need to start thinking,
what kinds of things would make them happy and healthy?
My son had to wear
a brace when he was in preschool,
so we had to think about how,
what situations will make him happy,
'cause he's not going to be happy if you
sit him on the floor, 'cause he's
going to be kind of crunched.
And so what did we need to do to help
make that more comfortable for him,
so he could have a happy experience
and not be feeling miserable the whole time?
So, and it's different for every child.
What things are going to go in there
that will make it a good plan for your child?
There might be some community resources,
and you could think about those,
that might be part of your transition plan.
And then decide if you want to invite a
support person to the meeting,
because you're always welcome to invite someone
to come with you to be another set of ears,
so sometimes grandparents, sometimes parent coordinators,
sometimes good friends that are just another
person in the room that you feel like
you want there to help with you as you ask questions
and talk through the next steps.
The IFSP people that have been
working with you, what's their role,
where they're going to help you work through?
What are some transitions and community resources
that you could use?
What kind of supports do you need?
Mine had to think about, well if he can't
sit on the floor in that brace,
what could we put him in?
And they brought in a little chair
that put him a little bit up off the floor,
not so he was way above the other kids,
but he was on a little cushion
that was just enough for him to sit up more upright
and have room for his legs.
So any little thing that could help,
they're thinking through.
And they will schedule a meeting,
a planning meeting,
90 days prior to the child's third birthday.
At least 90 days, so all right.
Oh, and I just had that for the Hopes and Dreams.
- Okay, step two, the transition planning
and as Sue had mentioned, the planning takes some time.
So it's not as if suddenly you're going to find out
a few months before that transition
is going to happen.
It's a step-by-step.
One of the things that many families have
are a lot of questions,
and they really encourage questions.
They want questions.
That means that you're engaged.
That means that you're really trying
to figure out this process for your child
and for yourself.
So always feel free to ask questions of the team.
The team will change typically, during that transition time,
but they work very hands-on together.
The Early Intervention staff and
the Early Childhood Special Education staff
work together in the classroom,
a natural environment.
We always try to encourage families
to go and do a visit, a visit with the,
in the preschools when the kids are there,
will kind of give you a feel for that room,
how your child would deal, what kind of supports
they may need.
And that is also a really good time
for you to generate some questions to ask the team.
These steps were created because we want families
to be engaged in the process,
and we want them to ask questions.
And so many times, and I know for me,
because I did not have any kind
of an educational background.
I did have three children in school,
and I was very involved with the school.
But when it came to Jordan it was a whole new journey,
something I'd never experienced before,
I didn't even know about.
In fact, when the Early ACCESS staff
first came to our home, it was a social worker
and I'm kind of like, well what,
are they calling DHS on us now,
because Jordan has special needs?
What's going on here?
I mean, that's how oblivious I really was to everything.
So a lot of things, I was just overwhelmed
and never thought to ask the questions
until later on.
This'll help you in advance, ahead of time,
to think about those questions
and write those questions down.
So these sheets, the teams love to see these sheets,
or a worksheet, or have you really involved.
So this'll help encourage you to do that.
So one of the things that they want to check
and they will be checking through that evaluation
for individual education plans from the
Individual Family Services Plan,
is that they want to make sure that they don't need
to do additional assessments.
Because your child has been in
their natural environment, whether that be at home
or in their childcare,
and they are going to be going into
a classroom environment, so some assessments
may need to happen.
It can be in different things.
It can be in communication, it can be in behavior,
any of those types of things can be looked at
as new assessments.
And of course, what are all the options
of the services available?
We have lots of different team members,
depending upon the needs of your child.
And some of these we'll mention,
some of the different team members that will be involved.
One of the things we really try to get people to do
throughout IFSP and IEP meetings,
and you guys know what that is, right?
Can I say those acronyms?
It doesn't throw you off or anything (laughing)?
These team cards, if you look at it,
it gives everybody that could possibly
be a team member on here.
And what we want people to do is at IEP meetings,
pass this around the table and have them
write their name and the best way to reach them
if you have some need to reach them.
So that you have that, and you're not
shuffling through papers and trying
to find that information.
So this is a really good chance for you
to use those team cards.
And then also, a good way for you to know
who do I ask?
Who do I ask about community resources?
Who do I ask about when will my child be walking,
or using a spoon or a fork,
or something like that?
So those kinds of things, different team members work on.
And they, for the whole child, they just really
need to have that input from you guys.
And depending on your child's needs,
many parents choose the Early Childhood
Special Education classroom.
Some people do choose a community preschool,
and others choose to have them in a home, childcare.
The difference is that once your child turns three,
they no longer can receive Early ACCESS services.
So you do need to be thinking ahead.
Do you want your child to go on to a preschool
that has people working on goals and special education,
or would you prefer that they be in a local preschool
with some supports and consulting.
Which services will best meet my child's hopes and dreams?
Well, you know, there's all sorts
of different services, as we mentioned,
so I think if your child isn't walking
like my child wasn't at three,
then we need a PT, a physical therapy services.
Jordan doesn't supinate, which means he
doesn't turn his wrists like this.
So he's always had consultation with OT
when he was in school.
Now he still receives private OT at home
for some of those things, through his HCBS Waiver.
And that's something that many of the team members
can talk to you about and refer you to the right people.
- So we're at step three, so it's the meeting.
And this is the planning meeting,
and this is the one that you're just going to,
everything's not going to be in writing.
Just going to talk through what is it that we want to do?
What are our plans for moving forward?
And so you're talking about the transition from
Early ACCESS to the next, to the IEP.
So you will be there, your service provider
and any AEA personnel that have been doing services,
and possibly a service person that is,
will be helping in the future.
They might be there too to visit.
It will be held between nine months and 90 days
before your child's third birthday,
so getting those wheels in motion.
And then the program will be reviewed and finalized
when the third birthday comes along.
They'll be making some assessments.
They'll be deciding, does your child
need to go on for assessments?
He or she continuing with IEP services,
or are they at the point now where they can exit out?
Maybe there was someone who was slow to walk
and now they're walking quite well
and they're not going to have
a difficulty going forward.
And so maybe it's right at that time
for your child to exit the services.
And I wanted to go ahead and look inside
of the book on this one.
Alright, and so again, here are the people
that will be at the meeting
and you're going to be talking through things.
And then on the Ideas to Prepare Your Child
for the next setting,
and that's something you might want to start talking about,
depending on what you're thinking.
About school, maybe ride by the school,
if they're going to start going to a preschool,
and looking at the, going in and seeing the room.
All those things, to start getting wheels turning
and start thinking about that.
- Okay, now we're getting into the actual evaluation.
You know, eligiblity for special education
in our schools
is different than eligibility for Early ACCESS services.
The evaluation is really going to decide
whether your child is indeed still eligible
for those services.
And many times they are, but sometimes I have seen
where they actually think that they,
with some certain supports, in consultation
with the teachers,
that they can probably go on to a general ed preschool,
and no longer get those services.
So it depends.
If your child has been kind of a speech only kid,
and was slow to talk,
but is doing, talking like a blue streak,
then obviously they're not going to
get those services anymore.
So it all depends.
One of the things that happens during the evaluation
is that they will be asking about your health history,
hearing, vision, and medical,
surgeries, things like that.
Typically what happens is a school nurse will call,
and talk to you over the phone,
and ask you those specific questions,
and have you sign some papers at the meeting.
So, and then of course, developmental history,
some of the things that have been a concern,
some of their strengths, all of those things
come into play.
So on the inside, it really talks,
there's a chart, and it's a development,
a look at your child's development.
And this is a really good sheet,
because it's some of the things that
you know your child can do, and
what their strongest developmental skills are,
and then some things you'd like them
to work on and learn in that area.
And again, I remember what I said was,
I want Jordan to be potty trained.
And they said, well we do that with all the kids.
That doesn't need to be in the paperwork.
But how many people would know that?
I mean, most people say that,
oh I want him to be potty trained.
They said, we do that throughout the day
with all kids.
And you'll hear that throughout the year,
throughout the school years, is some supports
don't need to be written in the IEP, because
they're just naturally being worked on
in the classroom all the time, with all kids.
So if you hear that, I wouldn't be overly concerned
unless it's a very specific thing
that you want worked on that isn't,
and that is another chance for you
to communicate with the team.
This is also another area that the practitioners,
our teams, like to see filled out.
So even if you guys don't have access
to these type of worksheets, feel free to use them,
and bring 'em to your meeting,
and have them filled out.
Because these really are a good tool
for both you and the team.
- Transition plan, the IEP process.
We're on step five,
and so now we're going to be leaving.
Your child is going to be leaving Early ACCESS.
That will differ from eligibility
for special education services.
Special education services beginning at age three
are going to be more child-focused,
where Early ACCESS it's been more family-focused.
We're going to be transitioning now from an IFSP
to an IEP, an Individual Education Plan.
And this is a lot of words, but it's also
in your pamphlet.
And it just kind of goes through the comparison
to see what the changes are, and there aren't a lot.
If you just read both sides,
both are showing the difference between
being more of the family setting to being
more of the individual education setting.
This child will become, they'll be focusing
on his learning goals, and they'll
start using more graphs and things.
And everything, all their goals will be measurable.
And they'll be taking data,
and all sorts of things to make good decisions
on how to best serve your child.
- Okay, putting the IEP into action.
Throughout the evaluation and transition process,
I think we've been pretty clear that
that communication is so important,
and we don't want anyone to feel
uncomfortable asking questions, so always do.
Another thing that our teams are
not supposed to be doing, but sometimes
we even find ourselves doing is using acronyms.
Acronyms are nice,
but for people that aren't familiar with them
it can be pretty overwhelming.
So if you ever hear an acronym like OT
and you don't know what it is,
they need to explain to you, it's occupational therapist
and this is what they do.
So just giving you the name wouldn't be enough.
You want to know what it is that they do too.
So that's the kind of communication
that we try to encourage.
Considerations for success is
planning for the first day.
There was a section in one of the steps
that talks about ways you can help your child
prepare for this, for the new setting.
And those are some really good hints to look at,
because you guys really do know your child the best.
And as I did say, many times the parents
are the ones that are the most concerned
and weird about this transition,
and the kids do just fine.
And I haven't seen one that didn't
eventually do just fine.
So I think that's kind of just, give it some time.
Of course you'll be doing the paperwork
and the forms, which is part of life.
Special equipment, different things
that your child will need.
Susan mentioned the band that she needed
to provide for him to sit comfortably.
It's different meetings, just depends on the child,
that the parents,
I just went to one where a child needed,
doesn't do well with certain foods,
and that snack time is something
they needed to provide,
specifically for their child,
because what would go around might not be
something they would do well,
and have a choking hazard.
So they wanted to make sure that
the right snacks were provided for that child.
Transportation, the schools are not required
to bus early special education classroom
and any kids with IEPs to school.
It's not a requirement in every single area.
So I know some of my districts are,
that's just a given.
They're going to be transported, and that's not it.
But make sure you talk to them about that
transportation piece and see what your district,
what their policy is.
Also, toileting as I mentioned,
we provided the diapers and the wipes for Jordan
because he wasn't potty trained,
so they want to know about that.
And you can also ask, what's your way of training,
so that you can maybe provide
some consistency at home too.
And then of course, if there's some
specific areas of concern that the staff
needs special training and orientation too,
that would be, if you're in a small district,
and this is the first child with this specific need,
they might need some special training for that.
And then of course, as we mentioned again,
the health-related needs.
So, I think that probably means that you
have gone through the transition
and as I mentioned earlier, you're part of the team
and you have a voice.
Communication is key, and make sure
you ask questions along the way.
And that's how you can reach us if you
would like to reach us through the website.
And then there's also on this,
it gets into our individual, this is our faces.
- I do want to add that if you go to this website
and you'll go to the Heartland website,
if you go to Special Education and click on that,
you'll get to and you'll see a long list,
and we're the Family-Educator Partnership.
And under that, there is all of these
next steps are online there.
And in addition, there's some other documents
and pages that are helpful.
We didn't put them all in and we didn't think
they'd all be used, but for some families
some things might trigger a thought process
that would be helpful for you.
So if you just go to that, or if that's
too much to write down,
just Google Heartland Education Agency.
You'll get to, and you can follow the link.
We're under Special Education and
Family Educator Coordinators.
And the videos are also on that link
on our website.
- All the different ones.
There's one that's, this is to early childhood,
but there's one to special education,
which is what you'll be, you'll know.
You might want to look at that one.
Orientation to Special Education,
so it'll give you a little more,
and then we also have an eligibility one in there
that might be even better for you to look at.
Okay, well thanks for coming, guys.
- Yeah, thank you. - Thank you.
(uplifting instrumental music)
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