January - Help Me Grow Early Intervention Program
Our Help Me Grow Early Intervention staff members - La’Tonya Castro, Sarah Dean, Emily Miller, Allison Dorr, Claire Howard, Kelly Hughes – work with children from birth to three years old who present with developmental delays or are in need of developmental intervention. If a family is concerned about the development of their child or if they are not meeting developmental milestones, they can contact Ohio’s Early Intervention program and staff can conduct evaluations or refer families to specialists, with the help of the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities. Through this evaluation, specialists can determine if there are any delays, and if there are, Early Intervention can discuss a variety of options with the family. Options are usually through community providers, such as the Board of Developmental Disabilities. Early Intervention is focused on what is best for the child and what best fits the child’s needs. Each family is linked with a service coordinator who facilitates the whole process. The service coordinator creates an individualized service plan with the family for the child. The service plan is a list of goals for the child to complete in their time with the Early Intervention program. Service coordinators perform the initial intake, ensures the family is linked to all the services they need and conducts monthly check-ins to ensure children are meeting their goals outlined in the service plan. These check-ins take place with the family and usually a representative from the Board of Developmental Disabilities until the child is no longer eligible for the program. At this point, the service coordinator will help transition the child to another program, which is usually through their local school district.
An example of Early Intervention in action is exemplified in the case of an autistic child that the program helped. The parents had suspected that their child might have a diagnosis of autism and reached out to our program. A service coordinator was able to conduct an initial intake to process the child into the program and later helped link the family to community providers whose work is specific to children with autism. Oakstone Academy & Children’s Center for Developmental Enrichment (CCDE) and Nationwide Children’s Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders were very helpful in this specific case. The service coordinator was able to help the child with their eye contact, their overall communication, and various other milestones that are harder to overcome with the diagnosis of autism.
Services of CRIS’ Early Intervention program come at no cost to a family with an eligible child. There is a chance that the outside community providers that are referred might come to a cost to a family; however, the intake into the program and service coordinator are free of cost. The program at CRIS works with several interpreters to fit the needs of every family. These services are ongoing until the child reaches three years old.
If you are interested in enrolling a child who might present with developmental delays or are in need of developmental intervention, call 1-800-755-4769 or visit ohioearlyintervention.org. From there, you will be placed with whatever Early Intervention program serves your zip code. Our program at CRIS specifically works with families with Dublin, Hilliard, Powell, Worthington, and Upper Arlington zip codes.