Under the supervision of a licensed early intervention provider, paraprofessionals play an indispensable role in implementation of home and community-based services to infants and toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities and their families in Colorado. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 requires that paraprofessionals be appropriately trained for their unique roles; however, early intervention paraprofessionals, particularly in rural areas, have limited access to quality preparation programs. This article shares an example of a statewide model of preparation and training for early intervention paraprofessionals. The outcomes achieved, lessons learned, and next steps in the implementation of the model are also presented.

Personnel standards are the foundations for how states and nations approve a program, engage in systemic assessment, and provide effective professional development to its early childhood professionals. However, despite the extensive use of paraprofessionals in early intervention/ early childhood special education programs, there is a lack of national-and state-level guidance for training paraprofessionals. This article presents the process followed for development and validation of statewide personnel standards for paraprofessionals who work in early intervention settings and the results of this validation study. The development and validation process for these new knowledge and skills competencies followed the process used by Division for Early Childhood and the Council for Exceptional Children for development and validation of personnel standards and K-12 special education paraeducator professional development standards. Challenges, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

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