Staff members tells Commissioner's Advisory Panel on Special Education about their role in creating inclusion opportunities for pre-school special education students
On Friday, April 29, Ellen Burns and Nancy Hampton of the Capital District/North Country Early Childhood Direction Center (ECDC) presented to the State Education Commissioner’s Advisory Panel to raise awareness of the role that ECDCs around the state play in helping to increase inclusion for children with special needs in community-based preschool programs.
The Capital District/North Country ECDC, headquartered in the School Support Services division of Capital Region BOCES, provides training, technical assistance, information and support for school districts, providers of early childhood services and parents in the identification, referral and support of special education pre-school age children in 17 counties. Funded by the State Education Department, the ECDC is offered at no cost to schools, parents or child care agencies.
Burns and Hampton described for the 30-member commissioner’s panel how the work done by the ECDCs is driven by and relates directly to the State Performance Plan for Special Education. They spoke specifically about the ways in which the 14 ECDCs across the state work to increase access to integrated learning environments for preschool age children with special needs.
All ECDCs offer consultation, mentoring, and support for providers of early childhood services and parents of children with special needs, and collaborate with local Child Care Councils around the state to provide training and help organize conferences. In the Capital Region, for example, Burns and Hampton help recruit speakers to address best practices for serving children with special needs.
The Capital District/North Country ECDC has been asked to offer trainings to help staff from childcare centers around the Capital Region recognize the signs of developmental and behavioral disabilities, and to educate them about the evaluation process to help alleviate excess child referrals. Burns explained that when child care providers are more informed about what constitutes special needs and are provided the proper support, it often allows identified children to remain in conventional child care settings.
“In the Capital District, we have teachers and therapists who volunteer on screening teams that help to identify the children who need evaluation,” Burns said.
Following the presentation, two members of the Commissioner's Advisory Panel who had worked with ECDCs when their children with special needs were young, expressed gratitude for the support they had received.
“They discussed the value of our program in helping them in the early days of learning about their children's disabilities,” Burns added. “Another member was aware of the ECDCs, but did not realize the extent of our work and was amazed about the work being accomplished across the state with very little resources.”
