Professional Development
Workshops/How To Work With Families » Preparing Personnel to Work With Parents and Families
Introduction
Hi, I am Susan Turben. It is my pleasure to present to you a very brief preview of the Collaborative Personnel Preparation Training Curriculum.
Did you know that training for early intervention does not have to be a tedious or repetition happening but rather could be considered an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of perfected infant research and other studies that show the efficacy of early intervention?
Today, there are a number of skilled techniques that are considered to be “best practices” in the field of early childhood special education. After all, early intervention is a relatively new term that emerged out of research from the 60s and 70’s on the early education of handicapped children. Early childhood education and special education have consistently come together in order to serve infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. The notice of family contacts and education the whole family is an important concept for this training.
In fact, parent education as well as imploring and using parents as teachers of their children are trends that are considerably more viable today then they were 10 years ago. There is a considerable amount of evidence to support the importance of parent involvement not only as teachers of their children but also as consumers and advocates in the community at large.
Many disciplines are involved in the early intervention field today. In fact, more then thirteen professional and service provider concept of related to the field of early childhood education and special education today. Resource building in the community is also a very specialized and important avenue of concern. Therefore, any training that will be considered valuable must include a range of these best practices. For example, observation and assessment skills are important to the assessment and accurate diagnosis and prescriptive identification of young children. Knowledge of child development and the age at which children behave and develop both normally and atypically has become even more astringent and necessary for early interventionists.
Many practitioners have come to recognize that all disciplines, all professional types of discipline have something both to learn about each other and something to share. In this training guide the notion that all service providers are both experts and learners is an essential concept for the training. This concept known as Collaborative Consultation goes far beyond previous interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary models of early intervention. In this model, the trainer will enable, guide, and assist trainees in learning the Collaborative Consultative model that insures a mutual and cooperative approach to working with families whose children have developmental or behavioral difficulty.
The Collaborative Consultative Model stresses interdependency of information and information networking as exemplify in family first contusion and early intervention collaborative and other state and federal mandated programs that enhance the success of early intervention for families.
Do you know that in addition to naturally occurring observation and assessment training, Collaborative Consultative Model training and family focused intervention, there are a number of other best practices that will be emphasized in this training package?
The motivation to participate in the 18-hour training package should be geared toward those planning to conduct the training. Motivation comes from professionals needing to know: how families cope and manage, how children develop and behave, cutting edge research in the field of early childhood and special education, about trends toward inclusion and supportive unified service, how to work with families in their homes to maximize brief family focused intervention, and how to work in their communities as supportive advocates on behalf of children and their families. This training will also focus on disturbing, and concerning trends including child abuse and maltreatment of children, violence against children, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases affecting children and a variety of influences that impact negatively on the lives of children in our community today.
There is no question that resources previously used to train and educate practitioners and early interventionists need to be reallocated and redesigned, rather than reinvented. The majority of training guides created in the 80’s and early 90’s have focused both on principles of developmental human growth and develop, tenets of motivation learning theory and family systems research that shows interaction among family members, including the effects on young children. These guides to the development of training packages have served the decade well. But there is so much more to do.
The research has continually pointed the way toward integration and inclusive, yet diverse, education. These underpending of educational reform have filtered into the medical and clinical discipline. The result of this infiltration of educational paradigm has resulted into an interweaving and complex model that can be most effectively used in understanding today’s complex family.
There is no one way to teach, just as there is no one way to learn. Thus, training and education must find a way to integrate the two and to make experts out of all of us according to our background and experience. As well as learners of all of us who must share and network to obtain the education and information we need in order to serve our children well. Children’s Defense Fund, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and The Society for Research in Child Development are examples of just a few learned societies that are responsible for creating the body of knowledge that assists and guides trainers in their work with early intervention personnel.
It is true that in today’s society all children are born vulnerable and at risk, and during the period of infancy, toddlerhood, and the preschool years children can not wait to be served by their community: thus, this training experience should be motivational both in the learning experience and a productive way to upgrade skills and abilities.
