Ideas and challenges when working with families

Ideas and Challenges When Working with Families Assignment:

Often, families of children with  special needs are concerned about their child, particularly if they are  beginning the IFSP or IEP process. Read through two of the three  resources that explain how to support and partner with families:

• ELL’s in Early Childhood Education: Recruiting Immigrant Families
• Involving Immigrant Parents of Students with Disabilities
• 68 Involvement Ideas That Really Work

These articles are located under the Assignments section for this week.

Choose three ideas or concepts from each of the two resources (six ideas altogether) you feel are most important when partnering with families and you are most eager to try.  Then do the following:

• State the idea (and cite which article it came from)
• Explain why this idea is important to utilize in the classroom.
• Give an example of how this could be used in your classroom (do not use the examples mentioned in the articles)

Next, respond to this scenario:

Four-year-old Shaniqua and her  family have joined your program this year. She has just been diagnosed  with autism and has exhibited sensory processing issues and social  issues (she does not verbalize to other children) within the classroom  during the month she has been in your room. Each member of her family is  at different points in the process of reacting to the diagnosis. Some  of them are interested in learning more and some want Shaniqua to be  tested further. Others are asking if she will grow out of this when she  enters Kindergarten. As the classroom’s head teacher, you want to be as  helpful to the family as possible to ensure success during this year in  your program.

Using the resources you read and any others you may find online, address each of the family member’s concerns:

1. Find a family-friendly resource or website that you can give to the family giving evidence-based  information about Shaniqua’s condition.  Explain why this resource is  helpful and give the website.  Cite two things from the resource that  you might highlight for the family.
2. Find a local family support group to  recommend to the family and explain why a support group may be helpful.  Consider and explain which family member may be interested in a support  group and why you think this would be helpful for them.
3. Find a local resource for the family  where they can get more information about autism and explain how you  give this to the family and when.
4. Finally, find two resources  explaining evidence-based practices to use in order to help address the  social issues and sensory issues within the classroom that you could also give to the family to try implementing at home. 

Explain 3 activities you could use both in the classroom and  at home. Explain what issues each would address and why these  activities are helpful to Shaniqua. Be sure to cite the websites you  used to find the evidence-based practice.