COS Process Professional Development
Provided here is a collection of national resources to support COS training and technical assistance. The resources are displayed in a sequence and designed to be embedded in various types of professional learning opportunities, such as webinars and face-to-face trainings.
COS Process Professional Development: Guidance for Preparing and Implementing Effective Training and TA contains all the information you will need to understand the sequence and suggestions for identifying an appropriate starting point in your professional development context.
Build Knowledge of the COS Process
Practitioners gain an understanding of essential COS concepts.
- The COS Process Online Module provides key information about the COS process and the practices that contribute to consistent, meaningful COS decision making.
Practitioners gain understanding of unique features of the COS in their state.
- State/Program-Specific COS Process Policies and Procedures Checklist contains child outcomes measurement policies that should be communicated to practitioners.
Develop COS Process Skills
Practitioners gain skills for effective implementation of the COS process.
- Applied Practice for COS Skill Building Activity includes activity instructions and written case studies for practitioners' applied practice.
- Age Anchoring Guidance for Determining COS Ratings provides answers to commonly asked questions about age anchoring as it applies to the COS process and examples of how the guidance applies in practice.
- Topical COS PD Activities includes a collection of targeted PD activities and materials indexed by topic.
- Aligning a Child's Functional Skills with the Breadth of the Three Child Outcomes supports high-quality COS ratings by helping teams connect their observations of children's functional skills and behaviors with the three child outcomes.
- Understanding Functional Skills: Background for the COS Process helps teams think about measuring a child's use and integration of functional skills to participate in their everyday routines.
- COS Practice Scenarios (COS-PS) are a collection of scenarios of children, ages 6 months to 5 years, that allow you to practice aligning information about each child with the three child outcomes and anchoring the information by age.
- COS Team Collaboration (COS-TC) includes training materials and online objects supporting self-assessment of COS teaming practices.
- COS Completion When Teams Can't Meet In Person includes considerations, best practices, and helpful resources for extenuating circumstances when teams must conduct COS meetings using telecommunication devices such as phone and/or computers with or without video or having discussions with team members in different locations through teleconferencing.
Encourage Continuous Improvement on the COS Process
Provide opportunities for ongoing support to continue to improve practitioners' COS process skills.
Frequently Used Resources
- Child Outcomes Summary (COS) Process Quick Reference Guide
- Resources for More Information about the Child Outcomes Summary (COS) Process
- Overview of the COS Process
- Decision Tree for Summary Rating Discussions
- Decision Tree for Summary Ratings (Spanish) (Courtesy EI Colorado)
- Definitions for Outcomes Summary Ratings
- COS Process Discussion Prompts
- Child Development Resources
- Understanding Functional Skills: Background for the COS Process
- Outcomes FAQ