The early intervention field apparently needs another type
of professional. The primary service provider’s role was first articulated, to
my knowledge, in a 2003 article, “The Primary-Service-Provider Model for Home-
and Community-Based Services” (McWilliam, 2003). A thorough treatment of this approach has
subsequently been published in the book The
Early Intervention Teaming Handbook: The Primary Service Provider Approach,
by M’Lisa Shelden and Dathan Rush (2013).
To function as a primary service provider (PSP), you need the cooperation of
your teammates. They need to agree to serve as secondary service providers,
making visits with the PSP as needed, and not being on the plan at a regular,
frequent rate. Two situations have arisen to create the need for this new type
of professional.
In one state with which I worked, special instructors, as
they’re known in Part C of IDEA, make weekly visits to families. Good news!
Weekly! But service coordinators are also putting therapy services (OT, PT,
SLP) on the plans for weekly visits. In this particular state, therapies are
usually provided in clinics/centers/offices—definitely not the natural environment.
The state can get away with this because what they report to the Office of
Special Education Programs is the percentage of children receiving their
primary service (special instruction) in natural environments. This state,
therefore, looks good in “Indicator #2: Settings: Percent (sic) of infants and
toddlers with IFSPs who primarily receive early intervention services in the
home or programs for typically developing children.”
In this situation, by definition, no one is the PSP: If more
than one service is being provided at the same frequency, an interdisciplinary
or multidisciplinary approach is in place. Who is looking at the whole child
and family? In this situation, it is clearly the special instructor—the person
in the home or child care program, attending to all the outcomes on the IFSP.
The other situation creating the need for a new type of
professional is reflected in another state with which I work (I work with many
states). Here, families are often visited weekly, by different people. For
example, the special instructor might visit the family twice a month and a
therapist (OT, PT, SLP) might also visit the family twice a month. Again, we
have equal frequency, so inter- or multidisciplinary. Or the special instructor
might visit the family twice a month, one therapist might visit them once a
month, and another therapist might visit them also once a month, with the
family receiving four visits a month from three different people. Some families
have monthly visits from (a) a special instructor, (b) an SLP, (c) and OT, and
(d) a PT. That means any one professional is seeing the family only once a
month—what Dathan Rush calls “checking in, not digging in.”
Because of these situations precluding the use of a PSP, I
have created the role of a comprehensive service provider (CSP).
This professional takes responsibility for addressing the whole child and
family. When a Routines-Based Interview (RBI) has been conducted, and the
family has identified 10-12 outcomes/goals, the CSP provides support around all
those outcomes/goals, regardless of who else is involved.
The extent to which the CSP and the other service providers
collaborate depends on many factors, but probably most saliently on (a) how
willing the teammates are to discuss their work, (b) how functional the
teammates’ work is, and (c) how much interdisciplinary respect the teammates
have for each other. When I say “teammates,” I mean the people who are on a
child’s IFSP/IEP.
In the rest of this blog post, I provide an overview of the
CSP’s role, why we need one, how the CSP works, who decides on the CSP, where
the CSP works, and when the CSP changes.
What Is This Person?
The CSP is an early intervention provider from any
discipline on the child’s IFSP/IEP. He or she accepts the role of supporting
the family with all child and family needs, with the support, to the extent
available, of professionals with other qualifications. Because other
professionals on the IFSP/IEP are seeing the child separate from the CSP,
rather than in joint visits, the collaboration between the CSP and others
ranges from nonexistent to close. If they are not employed by the same agency,
the collaboration tends to be minimal. Somewhat more collaboration occurs if
everyone on the IFSP/IEP is employed or contracted by the same agency.
Why Do We Need a CSP?
We need a CSP in these multi- or interdisciplinary scenarios
for three reasons: blinkers, duplication, and contradiction. When professionals
from different disciplines work independently with the child, they tend to
restrict themselves to the areas in which they were trained. They often refer
to this as their scope of practice, thinking they should not exceed it. The
problem is that the scope of practice (a) is different depending on the age of
the child, the setting, and the problems addressed; (b) assumes the
professional knows only about his or her area of training; and (c) ignores the
fact that development in one area (e.g., domain) is influenced by development
in other areas—sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. When each professional
makes visits with disciplinary blinkers
on, we find that many RBI-generated outcomes/goals do not fit neatly into the
scope of any of these professionals’ traditional practice. This blinkering has
led to the phenomenon of more professionals on children’s plans, resulting in
fewer child and family needs met.
Duplication and contradiction occur when each person
seeing the family claims to be addressing the whole child and family. If they
are seeing the family without other IFSP team members and communicating
minimally, we could have duplication
of services. Both the speech-language pathologist and the special instructor
are working with the family on finding opportunities for the child to interact
with peers. We don’t need to pay two people to do this. Furthermore, the two professionals
might give contradictory advice about
how to help with child functioning or family needs.
How Does the CSP Work?
The CSP works by addressing all child and family
outcomes/goals, using a family consultation
approach, and employing three critical tools.
Types of Goals
Plans can have three types of goals: child goals,
child-related family goals, and family-level goals. Child goals are those
skills the family has indicated they would like their child to learn. For
example, they could be rolling from stomach to back, using two-word
combinations, persisting when something doesn’t work the first time, using the
potty, playing with another person, and so on. Child-related family goals are those
for the adults that have to do with the child, such as learning sign language
to help the child learn signs, getting information about the child’s
disability, or obtaining equipment that will help the child function.
Family-level goals are for things the adults want, not directly related to the
child, such as a different job, change of housing, enrolling in classes, and
having time for him- or herself. The CSP consults with families about all these types of needs.
Routines-Based Visits
The CSP works by making routines-based visits, which are
designed to meet the family’s need and to build the family’s capacity to meet
their child and family needs. They include
- · Giving families the opportunity to set the agenda;
- · Referring to what the family said they wanted to work on;
- · Referring to what the family said they wanted the focus of the visit to be;
- · Talking about skills always in the context of everyday routines;
- · Action in the form of demonstration by the child, family, or CSP;
- · Discussion of other skills in that routine;
- · Discussion of other routines for that skill;
- · What we will do between now and the next visit; and
- · What the focus of the next visit will be.
The visit is therefore responsive to the family’s needs,
agenda, and experiences. It also includes sticking the landing: actually coming
up with suggestions, but only after obtaining context.
The CSP also makes collaborative consultation visits to
children’s classrooms, to build the teachers’ capacity to meet child needs.
These visits include
- · Giving teachers the opportunity to set the agenda;
- · Referring to what the teachers said they wanted to work on;
- · Referring to what the teachers said they wanted the focus of the visit to be;
- · Talking about skills always in the context of everyday routines;
- · Action in the form of demonstration by the child, teacher, or CSP;
- · Discussion of other skills in that routine;
- · Discussion of other routines for that skill;
- · What we will do between now and the next visit; and
- · What the focus of the next visit will be.
Tools to Help
The CSP has three tools at every home visit and two of these
at every classroom visit. At every visit, the CSP should have the Next-Steps
Form (NSF) and the matrix, at home visits, the /ecomap. The NSF is needed to
review with the family what they have been working on (see www.eieio.ua.edu/materials).
It also specifies what the focus of this visit should be. When asking the
family about that focus, the CSP should show the family the matrix, because
that lists all child and family goals. The matrix shows the routines for which
each child goal is targeted (see www.eieio.ua.edu/materials).
The matrix is also used sometimes to make a transition from
one topic to another. For example, if a professional and a parent have been
talking about strategies to help the child sit through “big church” without
being a distraction, the professional can ask about other times when being
noisy and fidgety interferes with functioning or other skills needed during big
church time.
The ecomap shows a family’s informal, intermediate, and
formal supports. It is used whenever a new need comes up, especially a family-level
one, or a new strategy needs to be found. The purpose is to use existing
resources rather than seeking out additional services, unnecessarily. When
families see their own assets can be used to meet needs, it empowers them. For
example, the parents want to have a date night but they have no babysitter. The
CSP prompts them to look at their ecomap—at their informal resources—to identify
a possibly babysitter.
Who Decides Who the CSP Is?
The need for a CSP arises in a multi- or interdisciplinary
environment, where more than one professional is seeing the child and family at
roughly the same frequency. In other words, no one is the primary service provider, which is the preferred approach. A
professional from any discipline can be the CSP, but it must be someone who is
prepared to help caregivers with all child needs and family needs, not only
those related to the person’s area of formal training. If the Routines-Based
Interview or other functional, family-centered assessment of needs has been
conducted, many outcomes/goals will fall outside any discipline’s scope of
practice. Which of the two or more professionals on the IFSP/IEP should serve
as the CSP?
The family can decide who is most likely to fill this role,
if they know the professionals already. In American early intervention under
Part C of IDEA, the service coordinator can decide on the most appropriate
professional. If a blended service coordinator (i.e., a service provider who
also works as the service coordinator) is used, that person is probably best
suited to be the CSP. For preschoolers, the decision maker about who the CSP is
could be the person managing the IEP meeting.
Where Does the CSP Work?
The CSP works in homes, the community, classrooms, or even
offices (e.g., centers, clinics). The important point is that the CSP spends
time with natural caregivers, using collaborative consultation. With families,
we call this family consultation. The
visit consists of
- · Reviewing what the caregiver has been working on since the previous visit,
- · Focusing on what the caregiver wanted the current visit to be about,
- · Discussing child skills in the context of regularly occurring routines,
- · Assessing and promoting the child’s meaningful participation in routines (engagement, independence, social relationships),
- · Hearing about progress towards family goals (in the case of visits with families),
- · Strategies to improve classroom management, and
- · Plans for follow up to the visit.
When Does the CSP Change?
Ideally, never. In the Routines-Based Model, we say The PSP changes only upon death. Because
families form strong relationships with their CSPs, we follow the principles of
continuity of care. In a PSP/CSP environment, the background of the
professional can be from any of the main occupations: early childhood special
education, child development and family studies, occupational therapy,
speech-language pathology, physical therapy, social work, psychology,
nutrition, nursing, and so on. Just because the main areas of concern shift
from motor to communication, therefore, it doesn’t mean we change CSP.
Internationally, the most common reason for change is when the family moves,
either because the child is now served by a new program or the program assigns
CSPs by geography.
Conclusion
Using a CSP is a powerful way to garnish the benefits of a
PSP approach, when one can’t actually have a PSP. A CSP can ensure that
caregivers receive help in all areas of child functioning and family life. The
CSPs ability to secure help from other people on the IFSP or IEP varies, so he
or she needs to be resourceful and hard working. If an RBI is used in a multi-
or interdisciplinary environment, one service provider must assume the role of a CSP, because many outcomes/goals will
fall outside the traditional confines of the standard disciplines.
McWilliam, R. A. (2003). The
primary-service-provider model for home- and community-based services. Psicologia: Revista da Associacao Portuguesa
Psicologia, 17, 115-135.
Shelden,
M. L., & Rush, D. D. (2013). The
early intervention teaming handbook: The primary service provider approach.
Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
