Seven Essentials for Family-Professional Partnerships in Early Intervention

Family-professional partnerships are essential to early intervention practice (birth-age 3). However, building and sustaining these partnerships is complex work. This book is about digging deeper and looking closer at what it takes to have successful relationships with each and every family. The authors explore seven partnership concepts, brought to life through the words and perspectives of families and professionals themselves. New and veteran professionals can use the lessons learned from these accounts to more effectively work with families. Each chapter ends with Questions for Daily Reflection to help early intervention professionals continue to develop their practice. The final chapter describes themes that result from and span the seven concepts as well as the systems needed to support successful family-professional partnerships.

Book Features:

• Provides a set of concrete practices for partnering with families.
• Presents authentic voices of families and professionals in action.
• Promotes enhanced reflection as readers apply the lessons learned to their work.
• Recognizes and highlights the individual nature of each family-professional partnership.
• Includes tools to help plan, implement, and evaluate the use of the practices described.

Bonnie Keilty is associate professor and program coordinator of early childhood special education at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY).