IFSP

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/3/2006 11:50:59 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,

abaugh7080@... writes:

we have a meeting with a team from our states EI office, the team is

like 4 people. for the most part i dont know who they are, what they

do, other than one is a head of the local hands and voices. what can i

expect from the meeting, and what does the IFSP do. from what i've

read, its some type of plan for a year, then at the end of the year, us

and the team, determine if we met our goals. am i right? what can i

expect at this meeting?

,

The meeting is basically a planning meeting to set up what kind of things

your child needs. The people coming are suppose to be people who will help

develop and maintain your child's plan. That plan, once written and approved,

is

a legal document and must be followed. If it needs changing, then it can only

be altered by having another meeting.

Once the plan is in place, we meet once a year to evaluate it. At the end of

the year (around here it's in the spring) we meet to discuss how the plan

went and what needs to be changed, altered, enhanced or dropped. We discuss the

expected demands of the coming school year and try to put appropriate things

in place.

For school age kids here in NY, the official goals are evaluated each

marking period (every 10 weeks) for their level of success. Some can be adjusted

without a new IEP meeting. Theoretically, the IEP was set to cover the

needs/growth/development for the entire school year. Sometimes we need to meet

again

during the year to adjust the plan. I don't know how often an EI program is

usually evaluated, that is something you can set up in this meeting. For

instance, you can ask that a review meeting be set-up after 3 months to see how

things are going.

Since this is your first meeting, you can expect any number of things. Many

parents sit down and have appropriate services offered and the arrangements

made for the proper professionals. Some parents disagree with what is proposed

and lobby for different things. Please remember that you are a very important

part of this team. Your voice and opinion count. If something does not sound

(or feel) right, then you don't to agree to sign off on it.

We never had EI services, so ours were IEP meetings -- the kind you have for

school age kids. Before our meetings, testing had already been done so that

we could discuss the results and what they indicated. I'm assuming that there

have been some tests done to determine your child's language skills and

other developmental milestones. If that is the case, then those tests and the

evaluations done by different people (TOD, SLP, etc) will be the basis for

deciding what is appropriate for your child.

If you feel that what is being presented is not accurate, you can request

additional, independent testing be done. It's called an IEE and they'll arrange

for it. Do not feel shy about speaking up if you feel that the

tests/evaluations do not accurately represent your child.

Many parents bring along a tape recorder to their meetings. You can do this

as well and should not be shy about it. A tape record is more accurate than

the notes taken by the recording secretary.

Any disagreement you have or additional requests for the team should be made

in writing. You don't have to write fancy legal sounding letters. And don't

write emotional ones either -- those are ignored and easily dismissed as being

unreasonable. A few sentences is usually all it takes. Phone calls are

great, but honestly, unless it's in writing, no one has legally agreed to

anything. I send follow-up letters even for good meetings, stating my

understanding

of what was covered. Those letters are sent registered, return receipt so I

have a record that the letters were in fact received. Or I hand deliver them.

I'm pretty sure that you're nervous. I know I was. I still get anxious since

many of my meetings were nightmares. But we're the exception in that, not

the rule. I've had only good meeting for the past 4 years.

Go to the meeting, see how it goes. And remember that you don't have to

agree to anything unless it sounds like a good plan. And if you change your

mind

about something, you can very easily request another meeting to have it

changed.

The IEP/IFSP is a plan for the process of serving you child, a plan for your

child's development. It is an evolving thing, meant to change as your

child's needs change. So even after it's written and approved, it can be

altered.

I'm about to alter Ian's based on the trouble he is having in his English

class. It's time for more support in certain areas and we know that because

he's

starting to have some difficulties. So, it's time for the plan to change,

time for it to evolve even though it's not the " official " time for a meeting.

This is still an ongoing process.

Come back here and ask us anything you want after the meeting. We'll give

you our 2-cents and any advice we can. This is hard and scary at first. It's now

8 years later for me, and it's so much easier now that I've learned a little

more, but I admit that I still get nervous. I still put on my business

clothes for our meetings because that's what makes me feel confident.

Best -- Jill

[Guest guest]

,

With my children and their IFSP's we all sat down and came up with a plan that

worked towards developing the skills that the team, including myself, wanted to

focus on for the coming year. We looked at developmental milestones for the

child's age and services available for helping to meet the goals that we set for

meeting those needs. Cody never met them all, in fact on a few he didn't

progress at all, but at least it gave us something to focus on with all the

therapists that he was seeing.

Don't be afraid. They really are there to support you in helping your child

develop. Just remember, your voice counts and you decide what is best in the

end for your child.

Dawn

-------------- Original message ----------------------

[Guest guest]

Here's how the IFSP (individual family service plan) worked for us. The first

time the team meets there is usually an evaluation. The team may be made up of

a speech pathologist, an educator, a physical therapist or ocupational

therapist. They all will be evaluating your daughter on different developmental

skills in their particular field of expertise. They often use standardized

tests for this and they check off different things that your daughter can or

cannot do. They'll observe her, play with her and ask you questions to complete

their evaluations. They will then go over the results explaining what her

strengths and weaknesses are. They will most likely tell you where she fits in

developmentally in different areas based on an age range. For instance she may

fall in a particular age range for cognitive development and a different age

range for physical development. They will determine if she is " developmentally

delayed " in any areas. I think it needs to be a 25% delay to justify services.

Once you determine where she needs assistance in closing that developmental gap

the team will determine what services will be put in place whether it's speech

once a week or more, or physical therapy or whatever. Remember you are a main

member of this team and you should be able to contribute what you think your

daughter needs and what is best for her. The team can help guide you.

Hopefully you will have someone on that team that is familiar with working with

babies with hearing loss. They will probably discuss communication methods.

Depending on what you choose you can get support and education for your family

to learn that method. With very young infants there may not be a

speech/language delay evident, however with deaf/HOH babies they need

intervention in this area so a communication method can be established and your

baby can learn to communicate in that crucial early learning phase. When the

child is very young the service providers are in the home to show you how to

work with your daughter to achieve her goals. You would be involved in the

therapy session so you can follow through with the techniques during your daily

living.

All these decisions will be documented in the IFSP. You will be setting goals

for your daughter for the short and long term. Long term might be 6 months or a

year and short term might be in 3 months. You will have follow up meetings to

determine progress and if any services need to be changed to accomplish those

goals. There will probably be a lot of information shared at the meeting and it

might be overwhelming. On the other hand you might find out that you know more

than they do. You never know. Anyway your team should be there for you and

answer any questions you have. If they don't have the answers they should be

able to provide the resources or find out the answers for you. You will be

asked to sign the IFSP to put it in effect and show you agree with it. If you

need more time you can keep it and review it. Even if you sign it and change

your mind about something you can always call another meeting any time to change

it. Good luck!

K

[Guest guest]

One big distinction between an IEP and IFSP is that the latter is for the

family, not just the individual child. You can write in goals that are

important to you as a family in responding to and learning about this diagnosis,

thereby better serving your child. This was useful to us as we were able to

qualify for some different services that we would not otherwise have received.

Kerry

-------------- Original message --------------

> we have a meeting with a team from our states EI office, the team is

> like 4 people. for the most part i dont know who they are, what they

> do, other than one is a head of the local hands and voices. what can i

> expect from the meeting, and what does the IFSP do. from what i've

> read, its some type of plan for a year, then at the end of the year, us

> and the team, determine if we met our goals. am i right? what can i

> expect at this meeting?

> thanks

> amanda

>

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/3/2006 9:44:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

dawkdd@... writes:

One big distinction between an IEP and IFSP is that the latter is for the

family, not just the individual child. You can write in goals that are

important to you as a family in responding to and learning about this

diagnosis,

thereby better serving your child. This was useful to us as we were able to

qualify for some different services that we would not otherwise have received.

From what I've been told, this distinction enables families to receive

signing lessons. So if learning and using sign is a goal you want for your

family,

this is a service you can request. Please note that by " sign " I mean

whichever version you choose, not just ASL.

Since our son was school age and oral when he was identified, this was

unfortunately never an option for us.

Best -- Jill

[Guest guest]

The " family services " can be interpreted however you want. We were able to use

it to have fees covered for attendance at auditory-verbal training conferences,

a parent support group for AV families, and a parent support group for HOH

families (who used all methods). The EI director even wanted me to request

funds to cover the expense of purchasing a lot of materials that I bought for

myself to learn more about AV and have certain supplies at home for the work we

did there. So, parents can think broadly about what would help them (and other

immediate family members) better support the HOH child.

Kerry

-------------- Original message --------------

From: JillcWood@...

>

> In a message dated 1/3/2006 9:44:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

> dawkdd@... writes:

>

> One big distinction between an IEP and IFSP is that the latter is for the

> family, not just the individual child. You can write in goals that are

> important to you as a family in responding to and learning about this

> diagnosis,

> thereby better serving your child. This was useful to us as we were able to

> qualify for some different services that we would not otherwise have received.

>

>

>

>

>

> From what I've been told, this distinction enables families to receive

> signing lessons. So if learning and using sign is a goal you want for your

> family,

> this is a service you can request. Please note that by " sign " I mean

> whichever version you choose, not just ASL.

>

> Since our son was school age and oral when he was identified, this was

> unfortunately never an option for us.

>

> Best -- Jill

>

>

[Guest guest]

JillcWood@... wrote:

<<From what I've been told, this distinction enables families to receive

signing lessons.>>

In our case, this is true because the agencies that serve families through the

IFSP have much more leniency when it comes to spending money, and they have more

of it to spend. Our IFSP also incorporated things like teaching me how to help

Emmett learn how to look for sounds and to use his eyes (something he didn't

need it turns out) to " hear " better. This came in handy since he was identified

at 2.5 (and was more than on par with speech/language) and our time with the

IFSP ran out at age 3. I had six months to cram a lot of stuff in, and we did.

The two agencies we dealt with were wonderful and did as much for us in that six

months as they could, including a family sign class which we requested.

Johanna

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