Technical Assistance for Part C, Indicators 5 and 6

1. Does the Lead Agency have policies, procedures, and guidance for implementing the new requirements of the IDEA 2004? 
2. What monitoring protocols is the Lead Agency using to ensure compliance with the all IDEA child find and public awareness requirements (inclusive of the IDEA 2004)? 
3. To what extent has the State evaluated the effectiveness of its child find system to locate and identify infants and toddlers who may be eligible for early intervention?  The State could analyze data from:
   1. Public awareness activities, including interagency coordination;
   2. Outreach programs in the community targeting underserved populations;
   3. Community-based screening programs, including interagency collaboration;
   4. Risk Registries such as newborn hearing screening programs and birth defects surveillance programs;
   5. High- or At- Risk Tracking Programs (examples: High Risk Tracking systems, Maternal and Child Health High Risk Tracking Systems, and NICU tracking); and
   6. Families who are enrolled in Part C to obtain their satisfaction and evaluation of their experiences with the public awareness, referral and enrollment processes in the State.
4. To what extent has the State evaluated the effectiveness of its responsibilities to ensure primary referral sources make appropriate referrals to Part C?  The State could analyze data from:
   1. The Central Directory, single point of entry systems, and information and referral systems;
   2. Primary referral sources such as physicians, hospital staff, parents, child care, and child welfare agencies, e.g. appropriate referrals from all primary referral sources;
   3. Health care planning such as hospital discharge plans, continuity of care plans, and medical home;
   4. Physician training such as resident training programs; and
   5. Other training and technical assistance activities, including interagency collaborator
5. To what extent is the Lead Agency utilizing relevant data to analyze trends, and draw comparisons and conclusions regarding its child find and referral systems?  An analysis could include:
   1. Trends of children referred to Part C and found ineligible in comparison to effectiveness, clarity, and appropriateness of the child find and referral system, e.g., primary referral sources understand who they should refer;
   2. Trends in staffing patterns, shortages and turnover rates of personnel involved in the early identification of young children, such as service coordinators and specialists;
   3. Comparisons of Part C utilization rates and other voluntary social service programs in the State;
   4. Comparisons of family retention rates, e.g., families that are hard to reach versus families that remain in the program; 
   5. Trends in eligibility determinations throughout the State and its impact on early identification, e.g., variance in how multidisciplinary teams respond to referrals for children with established conditions and/or developmental delays;
   6. rends in demographic characteristics of local areas compared to variance in identification rates, e.g., population size, poverty, percent of high and low income families, race/ethnicity, and health status.            
6. How does the State tie its effectiveness to its improvement activities? How often does the State modify the activities based on the evaluation of the effectiveness with the State system?

Original Word Document

Resources for Improving Referrals from Primary Referral Sources

• TRACE recommends tailoring printed materials as a research based practice to improve referrals.
• For recommendations on outreach to and maintaining referrals from primary referral sources see the TRACE publication Endpoints, Volume 2, Number 1, October 2006, and the TRACE Practice Guides: Improving Outreach to Primary Referral Sources and Providing Feedback to Primary Referral Sources. 
• Guidelines for developing a referral form may be obtained from TRACE.

Resources on Developmental Milestones for Parents and Child Care Providers

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with national partners, provides a public awareness campaign entitled Learn the Signs, Act Early . The campaign is meant to help parents and child care providers learn more about early childhood development, including potential early warning signs of autism and other developmental disabilities. Materials on developmental milestones and other fact sheets are available for downloading.

Resources for Outreach to Vulnerable Populations

• NECTAC Fact Sheet: Vulnerable Young Children provides data on infants, toddlers and young children who are experiencing high stress as a result of a number of risk factors specifically identified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004), including substantiated abuse or neglect, foster care placement, homelessness, exposure to family violence and prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol.
• Project Forum from the National Association for State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) developed a Quick Turn Around (QTA) on Part C Underserved Populations: State Outreach Efforts  that describes innovative strategies from 5 states to locate populations that are traditionally underserved in Part C.
• Conference Calls on Vulnerable Young Children hosted by OSEP's Part C Identification Community of Practice and the NECTAC Vulnerable Populations Initiative highlight states' experiences with referrals of children from child welfare to the early intervention system, along with strategies to improve collaboration, outreach and referral to vulnerable populations, including children and families who experience homelessness. 
• Developmental Status and Early Intervention Service Needs of Maltreated Children (April 2008), the final report from the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED),  provides information on the developmental status and early intervention service needs of children under age three who are substantiated for maltreatment.

Resources for Selecting Developmental Screening Instruments

• Developmental Screening and Assessment Instruments with an Emphasis on Social and Emotional Development for Young Children Ages Birth through Five from NECTAC includes screening instruments that address multiple developmental domains as well as those that focus on the social-emotional developmental domain. The screening instruments are further sub-divided into those which must be administered by professionals and those that may be completed by family members or other caregivers and includes a description, the age range for which the instrument was validated, the time to administer, the scoring procedure, psychometric properties, and requirements for administrators, and a link to, or address for, the publisher or source of more information.

Resources for Streamlining Eligibility Procedures

• TRACE in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), developed an early intervention referral form that physicians and other primary referral sources can use to make a referral to Part C early intervention programs. Guidelines for early intervention programs wishing to customize the referral form are also available.
• For recommendations on streamlining the eligibility process for children with known conditions (presumed eligible) see An Eligibility Determination Algorithm for Part C Early Intervention Enrollment
• For recommendations on using informed clinical opinion, see NECTAC Notes 10:  Informed Clinical Opinion and  Research Foundations for Using Clinical Judgment (Informed Opinion) for Early Intervention Eligibility Determination by Stephen J. Bagnato, Ed.D., NCSP, Janell Smith Jones, Ph.D., Margaret Matesa, M.Ed., & Eileen McKeating-Esterle, M.S.

Resources for Collecting 618 Child Count Data

• Child Count Fact Sheet and Questions and Answers on Child Find Part C Data Collection  and the Part C Data Dictionary are available from IDEA Data website.