Improving
Systems,
Practices,
and
Outcomes
ECTA Center hosts regular webinars with a variety of partners.
The ECTA Center and DaSy Center invited state Part C and 619 Coordinators and staff to participate in a follow-up TA call to discuss information shared by OSEP on December 16, 2019 on the identification and correction of noncompliance and the reporting of these data in the APR.
The TA call provided an opportunity for states to discuss the clarifications provided by OSEP and share strategies used in applying these requirements to their states' general supervision and APR reporting activities.
This webinar explores foundations for seamless transition for young children with deafness or hearing loss and their families from Part C to Preschool, the role of EHDI and the issues and strategies to support successful transition. State examples from Colorado and Ohio will be shared.
The ECTA and DaSy Center staff have completed their national child and family outcomes data analysis. They discuss the national performance data for indicators C3, C4, and B7, including national data, state variations in performance, family survey approaches used, and TA resources. The first half focuses on Indicators C3 and B7 (child outcomes) and the second half on Indicator C4 (family outcomes).
Maine Child Development Services, the lead agency for early intervention in the state of Maine, and The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (MECDHH) have entered into a partnership to ensure that children who are deaf or hard of hearing, birth to age three, receive family-centered, evidence-based services for deaf and hard of hearing infants and toddlers through the existing early intervention system. Prior to the development of a Memorandum of Understanding, both agencies provided services to this population. However, services and collaboration were often inconsistent across the state, occasionally ran parallel to one another and, in some cases, provided a duplication of services. The MOU served to integrate those services, to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each agency and to ensure that children who are D/HH and their families have access to the expertise of a multidisciplinary early intervention team. As a result, MECDHH teachers of the deaf and speech language pathologists on the Early Childhood and Family Services team, are able to provide support to and share their expertise with their local early intervention teams, families and children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Together, these two agencies are working to provide current, evidence-based services, within children’s natural environments, using a primary service provider approach, the embedding of intervention strategies in children’s daily activities. They have also added parent to parent support and Deaf/Hard of Hearing engagement into the first six visits of a families' experience with early intervention. On their fifth year of this collaboration, the two directors will share what they have learned and what strategies they have employed to lead to successful child and family outcomes.
During this Special Technical Assistance Call, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) with technical assistance providers and a few States will present on the ECTA/DaSy System Framework and accompanying self-assessment tool designed to support State early intervention and preschool special education programs with assessing their State systems and planning for improvement. State examples are presented to demonstrate how this resource can be used in a variety of ways including a state systems redesign, SSIP implementation, efforts to enhance State finance systems as well as collecting and using high quality data to improve outcomes for children and families. A new resource, the System Framework Quick Start Guide, is shared as a way for State staff to conduct a brief scan of their State system and identify areas to explore further within the Framework to best meet their state needs.
The purpose of this webinar is to provide information and answer questions about an upcoming intensive TA opportunity that will be available to states. The purpose of this intensive TA is to help states build their capacity to implement, sustain and scale-up indicators of high quality inclusion that address inclusive policies and practices at the three levels of a state system: state, local program, and early care and education environments. The intensive TA will require states to establish the following (see the Statewide Implementation Guide for details on the approach to be used):
TA will be provided from November 2019 - June 2022.
States awarded Preschool Development Grants B-5 (PDG B-5) are actively engaged in assessing the current needs for children and their families identified as vulnerable. States are taking a comprehensive approach to exploring needs and are tasked with bringing together key partners to strengthen the diversity of input and contributions to the process. The identification and inclusion of diverse data sources adds strong value to the assessment process. The IDEA 619 and Part C systems bring rich sources of data useful for states and communities in their continuous assessment and improvement processes.
This presentation highlights the types of data collected by states IDEA 619 and Part C and where the data is located. Discussion focuses on collaboration with state partners to integrate these sources into the broader state picture of how children and families are being supported. Included are suggestions for how the data can be used and analyzed for effective decision making.
This interactive webinar highlights stories from Part C Coordinators who have or are developing collaborative data sharing agreements that allow them to share Part C data with their Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program (EHDI). This webinar also allows participants to express their challenges and/or issues and as a group and brainstorm ways to overcome those issues.
The ECTA Center hosted a series of four short webinars that explore the Division for Early Childhood’s Recommended Practices (RPs)and some of the tools and resources developed to support the use of the practices. The fourth and final webinar unveiled an exciting and new family-level aRPy Ambassador Initiative designed specifically for Parent Centers.
The ECTA Center invites state Part C and 619 Coordinators and their state staff to participate in a two-part virtual event that will focus on the important skills and habits of systems thinking and how these skills are an important part of the Part C and 619 coordinators’ role in leading systems change. Through discussion and activities, the participants will examine their own skills and explore resources for supporting systems change work in their own state.
The movement of children and their families from Part C Early Intervention to Section 619 Early Childhood Special Education Services should occur as smoothly as possible. Missouri will share policies and processes for addressing summer birthdays. New Mexico will describe their state and local infrastructure for coordination and strategies such as local agreements, transition teams and transition coaches.
The Extended Part C Option is contained in the IDEA Part C regulations. The policy was designed to provide states the flexibility to allow toddlers who would be eligible to receive services under Part B, Section 619 to remain in early intervention after the age of three. The District of Columbia and Maryland share their rationale for deciding to use the option and their implementation approaches.
Presenters provide an overview of the national resources available to support COS training and TA, and how they might be incorporated into ongoing professional development (PD). State Part C and 619 leaders share information about their COS PD systems, including how they are addressing critical staff knowledge and skill development needs and impacts of training efforts on COS data quality.
The ECTA and DaSy Center staff have completed their national family outcomes data analysis. They discuss the national performance data, family survey approaches used, and provide a refresher on interpreting state data quality profiles. New TA resources related to family outcomes data collection, reporting, and use are also shared.
The ECTA and DaSy Center staff have wrapped up their national child outcomes analysis. TA staff discuss national estimates, state variations in performance, and provide a quick refresher on how to interpret the state data quality reports. New TA resources related to child outcomes data collection, reporting, and use are also shared.
Permanent hearing loss is an invisible condition and is the most common birth defect. In addition, the incidence of hearing loss doubles during the critical language-learning years before children enter school. Because an infant’s or toddler’s inability to hear clearly is rarely obvious to family members, health care providers or other professionals it may remain unrecognized for years. Over time, a child with an unidentified hearing loss will begin to manifest language delays and/or behavioral irregularities. In the absence of reliable hearing evaluation, these observable conditions may lead to misdiagnosis, incomplete diagnosis and inappropriate intervention.
Although Part C and Part B/619 Regulations require that evaluation and assessments include hearing, current guidelines do not specify how that should be carried out. Despite this requirement and the availability of technology that allows for infants and toddlers to be reliably screened, it remains unclear how consistently this occurs as a part of Part C and Part B/619 services. Providers may unknowingly label and focus on observable speech-language delays or behavioral problems and initiate intervention without accurately assessing the underlying condition.
For the past 20 years, with funding from the Office of Head Start and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO) Initiative has been providing training and technical assistance to Early Head Start, Head Start and other early care and education providers to improve the quality of hearing screenings provided to young children. This webinar will include insights about current hearing screening and evaluation practices in Part C and Part B/619 settings, important questions that need to be explored and will introduce you to educational and program development resources that are available to support the provision of quality services at state and local levels.
This is the fourth of four webinars hosted by the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center in partnership with the National Center on Early Development, Teaching and Learning. These webinars focus on questions that frequently arise when local early childhood programs collaborate to build high quality inclusion.
Pay for Success (PFS) is an innovative and promising financing model that has the potential to expand high-quality services for young children at risk or with disabilities and their families. In this webinar for state staff, DaSy provided a brief overview of PFS and described three ways states can build their capacity to pursue PFS:
Concerned about child outcomes data quality? Learn about a new resource, the Local Child Outcomes Measurement System (L-COMS). A state example of using the L-COMS to help local programs improve data collection is shared.
This is the third of a series of four webinars hosted by the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center in partnership with the National Center on Early Development, Teaching and Learning. These webinars focus on questions that frequently arise when local early childhood programs collaborate to build high quality inclusion.
This webinar focuses on supporting participation of children with disabilities in high quality inclusive environments through understanding:
This session was presented as a part of the ECDTL Series of High Quality Inclusion.
This 2016 national webinar introduces Pay for Success (PFS), an innovative funding model used to address complex social problems. In a typical PFS Financing model, private investors finance the cost of operating a promising or proven social program that has the potential to save the government money in the long term. Over 40 PFS projects are currently being implemented or planned nationwide to address critical needs in the areas of health, justice, labor, and early education.
This national webinar hosted by NCSI, ECTA, and DaSy, for state Part B and Part C staff focused on strategies for assessing the impact of SSIP infrastructure improvements.
Representatives from two state departments of education and two state Part C programs will participate in a "virtual state panel" and share their experiences with implementing infrastructure changes as well as their approaches to assessing the impact of those changes on their SSIP improvement strategies and ultimately, their SIMR.
This session offers an overview of young Dual Language Learners. Presenters highlight the importance of maintaining children and families' home language at the same time they are learning a new or second language. Further information on screening and assessing these children will be discussed, as will strategies for supporting them in inclusive preschool programs.
This session provides an overview of the IRIS Center Module Early Childhood Environments: Designing Effective Classrooms. Presenters Amy Harris (IRIS Center), Rob Corso (Vanderbilt University), and Ilene Schwartz (University of Washington) provide details about the interrelated physical, social, and temporal components of effective early childhood environments, as well as information on the ways in which well-designed early childhood environments benefit all young children. Additional emphasis will be placed on how to navigate the IRIS Center Website, IRIS Resource Locator tool, and STAR Legacy Modules.
Are you interested in learning more about the validity of the data from the Child Outcomes Summary (COS) Process? This webinar offers an overview of final results from the ENHANCE project. Four studies conducted in eight states provided information about the implementation and validity of COS information for accountability and program improvement. Results are drawn from a provider survey, coding of videos of the COS process, a study examining relationships between the COS and assessment tool scores, and examination of statewide and national population data.