Lesson 4: Family-Based Early Childhood Special Education Services

Attention

 

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Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to

  • Recall key terms that relate to family dynamics and family practices.
  • Explain the importance of ongoing, effective collaboration between families and providers in early childhood special education.
  • Describe strategies for effective communication with families in different settings, including classroom, meetings, and in the family’s home.
  • Define "family systems theory" and provide examples of each element in the model.

Teaching

What is a family? The Oxford dictionary defines a family as…..a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. This conventional definition of a family has changed considerably over time and continues to change. The following statistics indicate trends affecting the status of families:

  1. More than half of all marriages end in divorce.
  2. Every 18 seconds, a child is born to an unwed mother.
  3. One out of two children will live with a single parent at some point during their childhood.
  4. Twenty-three percent of children live with only their mothers and five percent live with only their fathers. Five percent live with neither of their parents.
  5. Every 34 seconds, a baby is born into poverty.
  6. Almost 60 percent of all children living in poverty live with a single parent.
  7. The number of preschool-age children who are homeless has increased by 43 percent in the last two school years.

As a result of the changing family, early childhood professionals face unique challenges and opportunities related to the diversity of families. Families react differently to having a child with a disability and early childhood professionals must provide services and supports to suit the needs of the ever-changing families in society today.

Family Systems Theory

This theory presumes that a family is a unique interactional system with distinct characteristics and needs. Family characteristics include: family size and form, geographic location, and cultural background. Poverty, substance abuse, and mental health problems would also be family characteristics. Family interactions include the relationships between the various family members (ex, husband-wife, parent-child, child-child, and extended family). Two elements that affect family interactions are cohesion within the family and the adaptability of a family.

Applications of Family Systems Theory

  1. Understanding the family as a social and emotional unit
  2. Development of individuals and families seen as a dynamic process of person-environment relationships
  3. Ecological perspectives
  4. Empowerment" includes three enabling characteristics: ability to access and control needed resources; ability to make decisions and solve problems; ability to interact effectively with others in the social exchange process (Dunst, Trivette, & Deal, 1988)
    5. Below see the Division for Early Childhood Recommended Practices for Family-Based Practices

Family Practices

Family practices refer to ongoing activities that

  1. promote the active participation of families in decision-making related to their child (e.g., assessment, planning, intervention);
  2. lead to the development of a service plan (e.g., a set of goals for the family and child and the services and supports to achieve those goals); or (3) support families in achieving
  3. support families in achieving the goals they hold for their child and the other family members.

Family practices encompass three themes:

  • Family-centered practices: Practices that treat families with dignity and respect; are individualized, flexible, and responsive to each family's unique circumstances; provide family members complete and unbiased information to make informed decisions; and involve family members in acting on choices to strengthen child, parent, and family functioning.
  • Family capacity-building practices: Practices that include the participatory opportunities and experiences afforded to families to strengthen existing parenting knowledge and skills and promote the development of new parenting abilities that enhance parenting self-efficacy beliefs and practices.
  • Family and professional collaboration: Practices that build relationships between families and professionals who work together to achieve mutually agreed upon outcomes and goals that promote family competencies and support the development of the child.

We recommend the following family practices for practitioners:

  • F1. Practitioners build trusting and respectful partnerships with the family through interactions that are sensitive and responsive to cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic diversity.
  • F2. Practitioners provide the family with up-to-date, comprehensive and unbiased information in a way that the family can understand and use to make informed choices and decisions.
  • F3. Practitioners are responsive to the family's concerns, priorities, and changing life circumstances.
  • F4. Practitioners and the family work together to create outcomes or goals, develop individualized plans, and implement practices that address the family's priorities and concerns and the child's strengths and needs.
  • F5. Practitioners support family functioning, promote family confidence and competence, and strengthen family-child relationships by acting in ways that recognize and build on family strengths and capacities.
  • F6. Practitioners engage the family in opportunities that support and strengthen parenting knowledge and skills and parenting competence and confidence in ways that are flexible, individualized, and tailored to the family's preferences.

DEC Recommended Practices in Early Intervention/ Early Childhood Special Education 2014

IDEA (2004) included language espousing a family-directed approach. This approach recommends that families and service professionals are partners. Turnbull et al. (2011) identified "partnership principals" for collaborations between families and program, school, and community settings. These principals include: communication, professional competence, respect, trust, commitment, equality, and advocacy.

Complete steps 1-4 of the CONNECT Module 4—Family-Professional Partnerships
Watch Kristi Rieger Campbell reading “What It Means To Be A Special Needs Mom”

Assessment

Lesson 4 Quiz

  1. This refers to the foundational values and beliefs that set the standards for how people perceive, interpret, and behave within their family, school, and community.
  2. An example of a hybrid family would be one in which each parent has ____________.
  3. The fundamental belief underlying ___________ is that a family is an interactional system with unique characteristics and needs.
  4. _____________ occurs in families and is a type of emotional bonding that holds them together.
  5. ____________ is the family's ability to change its power structure, role relationships and rules in response to crises or stressful events occurring over a lifetime.
  6. ___________ are useful in fostering collaboration among professionals and families and also depicting and using important information such as family structure, strengths, and resources.
  7. Modes of ongoing communication include _______________.
  8. Define family systems theory and provide an example of each of the four elements in this model.
  9. What are the key components of family-professional collaboration?
  10. What are some strategies that practitioners can use to effectively communicate with different families in different settings (.e.g) classroom ,meetings, and in the family’s home?

Lesson 4 Discussion

  1. Why is effective and ongoing communication between providers and families so important? And what happens when communication in not ongoing or breaks down?
  2. Talk about your own family and how you think it might have shaped your learning experiences. (e.g. Is your family a Leave it to Beaver family with two parents, two children, one dog, one cat, and grandparents living around the corner?) Share what you are willing to share.