2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
3/05/2019 | 9:40 AM - 10:05 AM | Creating a Statewide Family Centered Early Intervention System | Florence
Creating a Statewide Family Centered Early Intervention System
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 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.
- To gain an understanding of how to create one seamless, evidenced based early intervention system for statewide services.
- To gain an understanding of how to craft a Memo of Understanding between two statewide agencies to create one system for early intervention for infants and toddlers who are deaf and hard of hearing.
- To gain an understanding of the resulting landscape for children and families in Maine and other states when a collaborative approach to developing one statewide early intervention system occurs
Presentation:
18878_10496KarenHopkins.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
18878_10496KarenHopkins.docx
Presenters/Authors
Karen Hopkins
(), The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Governor Baxter School for the Deaf, karen.hopkins@mecdhh.org;
Karen Hopkins is the Executive Director of The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Governor Baxter School for the Deaf and the principal investigator of Maine's HRSA grant. She brings over 30 years of experience as a collaborative teacher of the deaf, special educator, early interventionist and educational administrator to her work with Deaf and hard of hearing children. Her work with families, coupled with her own personal experience as a Deaf adult and parent of a daughter who is hard of hearing have inspired her to create systems that empower families. Karen oversees early intervention and statewide educational programming for children who are Deaf or hard of hearing birth to age 22 throughout the state of Maine. She is active in many organizations and boards in Maine, the Hands & Voices HQ Board of Directors and is involved with international FCEI programming including the Deaf Leadership International Alliance. Karen's current research is focused on perspectives of family empowerment in early intervention systems for Deaf and hard of hearing children.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
• Receives Salary,Grants for Management position from HRSA Maine Educational Center for the Deaf.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.
Roy Fowler
(), Child Development Services, roy.fowler@maine.gov;
Roy is the Director of Maine's Child Development Services overseeing all of Part C and Part B 619 for the state of Maine. He has more than 20 years of experience working with young children with special needs. He has held a variety of positions over the course of his career including educational aide, classroom teacher, consultant, early intervention specialist, program manager, site director and state technical advisor. His work experience has taken him from inner-city Cleveland, to rural Ohio, to Germany, to England and, finally to Maine. Over the course of his career, Roy has developed a strong foundational knowledge of systems functioning, as well as experience in providing evidence-based services to young children and their families. Most recently, he has helped to spearhead the implementation of Dr. Robin McWilliam’s Routines-Based Early Intervention Model and the Early Start Denver Model throughout Maine.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -