Functional Assessment
Participation Activity
Purpose: Facilitate discussion about active listening and information gathering when meeting a family.
Once we have identified this information we will then use it later to help inform some high quality IFSP outcomes
Instructions: Have participants get into small groups. Ask them to read Mindy’s story (handout). Then based on the information they learned from her story have them fill out the back of the worksheet, identifying what are the family’s activities, resources, priorities, and concerns.
Have each group share what they came up with under each of the topic areas (some groups may have to report out on the same topic)
- Activities
- Resources
- Priorities
- Concerns
As they are sharing facilitator may want to add things from the master list the team did not share. *Note this could also be done as a supervision activity
Master list guide
Family activities:
- Mindy spends days with grandmother and brother- listening to music, playing outside, visiting neighbors, running errands, going to McDonald's play once a week for lunch
- Parents work full time
- Children love to play together
- Family attends church; Mindy may go or stay home
Family resources:
- Grandmother provides daily childcare
- Church
Family priorities:
- Grandmother would like to see Mindy crawl around and play with her brother at McDonald’s play land on their weekly lunch visits.
- They would like to be able to take Mindy to church and leave her in the nursery without crying.
- They would like her to be able to get around and play with the other children
- Mindy’s family would like her to get help so that she can learn to walk
Family concerns:
- Mindy can’t crawl around to play with her brother at McDonalds
- Mindy doesn’t seem to be interested in moving around or playing with her toys
- Mindy’s dad finds it hard to get Mindy to calm down and be happy since she cries a lot
- Family is worried about how much services will cost since they do not have insurance for three more months
- Taking Mindy to church is difficult because she cries and can’t get around and play with other children. Because of this, everyone does not always get to go to church together.
Wrap up: Talking points
- If participants note that “how Mindy likes to stare at the lights” and how much time she spends in the playpen are concerns, discuss how these are NOT concerns mentioned by the family, but rather may be concerning to the EI team. *Can ask how they might handle if team members express concerns for these issues but the family does not wish to address them in IFSP outcomes
- Discuss how much more information is obtained from the family by an open discussion about the child and family, rather than starting with the question “what are your concerns”
- Ask them what questions from our list in activity one (questions should be on flip chart) might help us get some of the information we now know about Mindy and her family
*Make sure to point out when participants recognize things that are not recognized by the family and what that could mean when working with a family. Pediatrician, full time jobs, and EI could be potential resources but they were not specifically identified as resources by the family. This would warrant further discussion with the family about it things like this are in fact resources, if so how and if not why or how can we strengthen the relationship so that they can be resources.
Early Intervention Training Center Massachusetts Department of Public Health
FY17