No abstract

A strong relationship between parents and professionals is essential to successful early intervention. Yet, programs struggle to engage families in services. This article describes a successful pilot project to strengthen parent/professional relationships for families with children with disabilities living in a high-poverty urban area. Early intervention (EI) providers were trained to use the FAN (Facilitating Attuned Interactions) approach to increase their attunement to parent concerns and capacity to collaborate with parents during early intervention therapy sessions. Over the pilot project, the providers felt more empathic with parents, more collaborative, and more effective and satisfied in their roles. FAN is a promising approach and practical tool to strengthen relationships between parents and professionals in EI.

This paper analyzes two different approaches to service delivery, in-home and clinic-based, in order to assist planners and clinicians in utilizing the merits of both systems most effectively. The two systems are compared and contrasted along the following variables: team process, identified client, pace of treatment, and degree of coverage. Using these variables as a guideline, this paper proposes that the degree to which the family's priorities are similar or dissimilar to the priorities of the organization determines the degree of effectiveness of home-based or clinic-based services. This proposal is discussed and case histories illustrating this premise are presented.