Documenting Family Outcomes: Decisions, Alternatives, Next Steps Don Bailey, Ph.D. Mary Beth Bruder, Ph.D. Contact information: Mary Beth Bruder, Ph.D. University of Connecticut A.J. Pappanikou Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service 263 Farmington Avenue, MC6222 Farmington, CT Phone: (860) Fax: (860) Website:

2 What is a Family Outcome? A benefit experienced by families as a result of services and supports received An outcome is not the receipt of services or satisfaction with services An outcome is what happens as a result of services provided to families

3 ECO Center Tasks: Family Outcomes Involve stakeholders to identify family outcomes that could be used in early intervention and preschool programs Provide guidance to states in documenting the extent to which family outcomes are attained Develop and evaluate the usefulness of an alternative measure for states to use in documenting family outcomes

4 ECO Family Outcomes Understand their child’s strengths, abilities, and special needs Know their rights and advocate effectively for their children Help their children develop and learn Have support systems Access desired services, programs, activities in their community ECO

5 ECO Family Outcomes and OSEP APR Requirements [Part C only] Understand their child’s strengths, abilities, and special needs Know their rights and advocate effectively for their children Help their children develop and learn Have support systems Access desired services, programs, activities in their community Percent of families participating in Part C who report that EI services have helped the family Know their rights Effectively communicate their children’s needs Help their children develop and learn ECOOSEP

6 Guidance to States Document, Part 1: Measurement Decisions What data collection mechanism will be used? What will be the source of data collected? Whose outcome is being reported? What will be the format and content of the items? What will be the format of the responses? How long will the measure be?

7 Guidance to States Document, Part 2: Implementation Decisions How will the assessment of family outcomes fit with existing initiatives? Who (if anyone) is responsible for local data collection? Will data be anonymous or linked to IDs? When and how often will data be collected? Who is responsible for data collection and aggregation at the state level? Who will convert data into evidence statements and how? Will results be confidential at level of family or program?

8 Guidance to States Document, Part 3: Instrument Options Adding items to existing state surveys Using recently developed measures NEILS interview items NCSEAM Impact on Family Scale Family Benefits Inventory ECO Center’s Family Outcomes Survey

9 Status of Guidance Document Draft of introduction and Part I (Measurement Decisions) has been completed Instrument descriptions and links will be added within the month. Guidance document should be posted mid-fall 2005

10 ECO Scale: Family Outcomes Survey Three items for each of the five proposed family outcomes Three additional items (also in 7-point scale) for states to gather APR-related data

11 A. Families understand their child’s strengths, abilities, and special needs A.1. Understanding your child’s development and how it compares with other children A.2. Knowing about your child’s special needs or disability A.3. Being able to tell whether the things professionals are doing are making a difference in development and/or behavior

C. Helping your child develop and learn C.1. All parents help their children learn and develop. Sometimes it can be hard to know what to do. How confident are you in your ability to help your child develop and learn? We can care for our child, but need a lot of information on how to help our child learn and develop We know the basics of helping our child learn and develop, but still have many questions We feel pretty confident in our ability to help our child learn and develop We are very confident in our ability to help our child learn and develop C.2. All parents help their children behave appropriately. Sometimes it can be hard to know what to do when your child is not behaving the way you want. How confident are you in your ability to help your child learn to behave appropriately? We need a lot of information on how to help our child learn to behave appropriately We know the basics of helping our child behave appropriately, but still have many questions We feel pretty confident in our ability to help our child behave appropriately We are very confident in our ability to help our child behave appropriately C.3. Your child has an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) that describes outcomes or goals that you helped develop for your child. The IFSP also describes the services to be provided by professionals. But families spend most of their time with their children without professionals around. Are you able to help your child learn or practice IFSP outcomes or goals during your home and community activities or routines? We have not yet started to help our child learn or practice these goals We have started to help our child learn and practice these goals, but it is not a regular thing yet We often help our child learn or practice these goals in our activities or routines, but it is not as regular as we would like We regularly help our child learn or practice these goals throughout our daily activities and routines