ODEC Officer Position Openings

The Ohio Division for Early Childhood (ODEC) is looking to fill some open officer positions, particularly for Secretary (open immediately) and Training/Professional Development Chair.
Below are the specific tasks for the positions, from our organization bylaws:

The powers and duties of the secretary shall be:

1. To keep careful record of the proceedings of annual business meetings and the meetings of the Executive Board.

2. To carry on correspondence as necessary for the operation of the subdivision in the absence of a Communications chairperson.

3. To assume custody of all records except those specifically assigned to others.

4. To keep accurate lists of Executive Board and committee members in the absence of a Membership chairperson.

5. To transfer all records to the new secretary at the time of installation.

6. To manage the organization’s online calendar.

The duties of the training and professional development committee shall be:

1. To identify training and professional needs throughout the state

2. To make recommendations for organization events/activities to meet training and professional development needs

3. To seek training approval from state agencies and other accrediting bodies for professional credentials (e.g., Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, Step Up To Quality, Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board, etc)

4. To ensure that participants in ODEC-sponsored training events/professional development opportunities receive the appropriate certificate for which the session was approved

5. To represent ODEC as needed at local/state/national conferences and/or meetings

 

If you are interested or know any colleagues, undergrad/grad students in Early Intervention, Early Childhood Special Education, Early Childhood Education, or related disciplines (speech, occupational, physical therapy, social work, school psychology, etc), or parents who might be interested, please email us at ohio[dot]dec[at]gmail[dot]com .




If you'd like to know more about who are currently serving on the board, see our officer list HERE.
 
Please note that officers must either be a current member or become a member of the international Council for Exceptional Children and Division for Early Childhood. CEC annual membership starts at $65 (students get a discount) and DEC dues start at $15. There are no additional dues or costs for membership to Ohio DEC. 
 
Information about our organization is below (among all our modes of communication, Facebook is updated most regularly).





Ohio DEC is a state subdivision of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC),
Council for Exceptional Children

How to connect with ODEC:

Web: http://www.dec-sped.org/ohio
Follow us on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/Ohio.DEC
Twitter: @OhioDEC

Ohio DEC Revised Bylaws Finalized

The Ohio DEC board has recently proposed to revise the organization bylaws for the following reasons:

• Eliminate the Liaison to Other Organizations chairperson position/committee. Rationale: We have not had an officer in this role for at least a year, and as a board we came to the consensus that each of us should act as liaisons to our respective organizations due to the diverse make-up of the board.
• Add a leadership position for Training and Professional Development chair/committee. Rationale: The field has focused on high-quality professional development to support practitioners in their work of serving young children and families. The Training and PD Chair will assist the board and the organization in ensuring that Ohio DEC members and practitioners within the state have access to ongoing professional development, particularly those offered by DEC.

According to the bylaws, any revisions must go through, at minimum, a 14-day review period. The bylaw revisions were shared via Survey Monkey for member comments in October. Based on the review, all changes proposed were finalized on the November 4, 2015 board meeting.

Please click HERE to view our organization bylaws.

A Practitioner Spotlight: Jess Howiler

The Ohio Division for Early Childhood strives to include at least one parent or teacher feature in our quarterly newsletters. In the last newsletter, we had two features submitted! We decided to include the parent feature in our newsletter and share the teacher feature on our Facebook and Blog.  Please enjoy this feature about this Ohio practitioner who seized a rare opportunity to support families in Okinawa, a small island in Japan.

From Ohio to Okinawa: An adventurous change in life and practice.
Written by Jess Howiler, ECSE-USNH for the Ohio Division for Early Childhood

If someone would have told me that I would be living and providing early intervention to children and families on the subtropical island of Okinawa, Japan, I would have laughed and said “I would have to be crazy to move my husband, 6 month old daughter, 2 pugs, and our lives across the world!”. Well, guess what. February of this year, my family and I packed our lives up in boxes and moved to Okinawa, Japan. What a ride these past 7 months have been for both my life and my career.


As I’m sure many of you know, Ohio is one of the many states trying to figure out this whole concept of best practices and how to provide the most cost-effective yet research-based early intervention services to children and their families in natural environments. What is meant by "natural environments"? Multidisciplinary team model versus Primary Service Provider (PSP) model? Providers thinking, “I’m a speech therapist, not a physical therapist” or “I’m the expert on what this child needs, I have the degree to prove it”. The world of Early Intervention is not as cut-and-dry as one might think. Lucky for us, a lot of the hard work and research into what truly is best practice has already been done. All we have left to do as providers is to be open to change and then committing to that change.

Here in Okinawa, I have had the opportunity to put to practice all of the research and theories that had been engrained in my Early Intervention studies while at Kent State University (shout out to the wonderful EI program team at KSU!). Don’t get me wrong, this has been a change that started just over a year ago and this change did not happen quickly. In fact, our team is still hashing out what works and what doesn’t for our program. We have really tried to look to the research and create a program that follows the ideals and best practice guidelines for an effective PSP model.



In my opinion, one of the biggest and most critical aspects of this change was the implementation of the Routines-Based Interview (McWilliam, 2010). Yes, when done correctly, the RBI can be very tedious, time consuming, and at times feel like an invasion of our families personal lives. However, when done correctly, the provider and family are able to have a rich, informal conversation about what is and isn’t working for them within the context of the family's daily activities and routines. From that conversation, the team (the family IS part of that team!) is able to create an Individualized Family Services Plan (IFSP) that is prioritized based on the family’s needs and therefore meaningful to that family. The outcomes on the IFSP are functional, making it easier for families to understand the outcomes and take ownership in working toward progress and change.

The other major change was working towards having a Primary Provider working with the family, rather than having 3 or more providers coming in and out of the home working on skills in a disconnected manner. Currently, we select a “best fit” provider that will work with the family on all of the IFSP outcomes. Each provider is on a team of providers that are experts in other disciplines (e.g. general development, speech, motor) who meet weekly to discuss cases and provide role gap support to each other as needed. When appropriate, we utilize joint visits as a way to provide extra support to the provider and family. A joint visit involves a PSP and another provider that specializes in a different discipline working together to coach the family on an intervention or strategy. The second provider’s role is to coach the PSP and the family.

Like I said, our program is a work in progress, but the changes we have made as a whole have been monumental both in practice and in how we have been able to create positive change in the lives of the families and children that we work with. Moving in this direction is not easy and takes a lot of effort system-wide, program-wide, and personally. It’s hard to make a change in how you practice when you have been practicing a certain way for so long.

What we need to remember is why we do what we do. It is our responsibility to provide the best service possible in an attempt to educate, advocate for, and empower families so that they may take the lead in making a positive change for their family.

Here are some examples of concerns that come from an RBI and then how that becomes a functional outcome:

Child Outcome:

* Family Concern: Daniel is becoming very frustrated when we eat and will not always eat what we give him so I end up making multiple meals.

* Child Outcome: Daniel will participate in meal times by making choices so that he can communicate what he wants to eat and meal times become more enjoyable for the family.

o Criteria: We know he does this when he makes a choice of 3 food items for 3 out of 4 meal times (breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner) a day for 1 week.

Family Outcome:

* Family Concern: Daniel does not have any children his age that live in our building. We are worried that he does not play with other children enough.

* Family Outcome: The Smith family will have a regular play group or play date established for Daniel so that he may play with other children his age.

o Criteria: When the Smith family has taken Daniel to at least 1 play opportunity for 3 consecutive weeks.

Announcing our newest board member

Please welcome Jennifer Riggie Ottley, our newest board member who will serve as Treasurer for Ohio DEC.

We thank Margie Spino's 5+ years of service as Treasurer. Margie has generously offered to support Jennifer in the transition to her new role. 

More about Dr. Ottley:

Dr. Jennifer Ottley started her career in special education when she was a high school student at University High School in Morgantown, West Virginia. During her senior year, she completed an internship with students experiencing severe cognitive impairments to aid them in functional and social tasks during their lunch period. Dr. Ottley then completed a 5-year Master’s program at West Virginia University where she obtained her B.S. in Multidisciplinary Studies and M.S. in Elementary Education. From 2004 through 2009, she worked with a boy with profound disabilities in his natural family setting, providing both academic and functional instruction according to his individualized plan.  From 2007 through 2009, she also worked as a teacher of children with autism spectrum disorder in Morgantown, West Virginia. It was during her co-teaching experiences that she realized the critical need to support general education teachers in meeting the needs of children with and at risk for disabilities. Thus, she enrolled at Florida State University to complete her doctoral studies in Early Childhood Special Education.

Dr. Ottley graduated with her Ph.D. in August 2013, when she went on to complete a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University.  During both her doctoral and postdoctoral experiences, she focused on supporting teachers and teacher candidates in providing high-quality learning opportunities to all children.  Currently, Dr. Ottley serves as an Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Special Education at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.  She teaches courses in adaptations, methods, and assessment for learners with special needs in early childhood settings. Her primary research interests focuses on supporting the development of young children with disabilities by enhancing the capacity of early childhood teachers, teacher candidates, and families to meet the children’s individualized needs.

Welcome, Jennifer! Ohio DEC is happy to have you on board.

Interested in a leadership role in a state-level organization?

image credit: http://thompson.k12.co.us/Domain/2392

The Ohio Division for Early Childhood (ODEC) is looking to fill some open officer positions, particularly for Secretary (open immediately) and starting January 2016, President-Elect. The term of the secretary is two years. The presidential series is a three-year term, with the first year as President-Elect (basically like a vice president), second year as President, and third year as Past President.

Below are the specific tasks for the positions, from our organization bylaws:

A. The powers and duties of the past president shall be:

1. To carry out and help maintain subdivision goals and activities

2. To serve as chair of committees as needed

3. To support the transition of president-elect to president

B. The powers and duties of the president shall be:

1. To serve as the chief executive officer of the subdivision with the powers and duties usually belonging to such a position.

2. To give leadership to general policy making and carry out the directives of the membership.

3. To call and preside at the annual business meeting and all meetings of the Executive Board.

4. To recommend leadership chairs of standing committees.

5. To be ex-officio non-voting member of all committees.

6. To recommend to the Executive Board the types of ad hoc committees and other appointive bodies needed.

C. The powers and duties of the president-elect shall be:

1. To serve in the place of and with the authority of the president in case of the president’s absence or inability to serve.

2. To develop the program and plan other meetings according to the policies and directives of the Executive Board.

3. To carry out and help maintain subdivision goals and activities

4. To prepare annual report as required by DEC.

D. The powers and duties of the secretary shall be:

1. To keep careful record of the proceedings of annual business meetings and the meetings of the Executive Board.

2. To carry on correspondence as necessary for the operation of the subdivision in the absence of a Communications chairperson.

3. To assume custody of all records except those specifically assigned to others.

4. To keep accurate lists of Executive Board and committee members in the absence of a Membership chairperson.

5. To transfer all records to the new secretary at the time of installation.

6. To manage the organization’s online calendar.

If you are interested or know any colleagues, undergrad/grad students in Early Intervention, Early Childhood Special Education, Early Childhood Education, or related disciplines (speech, occupational, physical therapy, social work, school psychology, etc), or parents who might be interested, please email us at ohio[dot]dec[at]gmail[dot]com .

Please note that officers must either be a current member or become a member of the international Council for Exceptional Children and Division for Early Childhood. CEC annual membership starts at $65 (students get a discount) and DEC dues start at $15. There are no additional dues or costs for membership to Ohio DEC. 
Information about our organization is below (among all our modes of communication, Facebook is updated most regularly).

Ohio DEC is a state subdivision of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC),
Council for Exceptional Children

How to connect with ODEC:

Web: http://www.dec-sped.org/ohio
Follow us on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/Ohio.DEC
Twitter: @OhioDEC 

Fall 2015 Newsletter

Our Fall 2015 Newsletter is available! You may read it HERE to find out more information about board position openings, a family feature, inclusion resources, and board member profiles. Happy Fall!

Our first research-to-practice newsletter: Challenging Behavior

Based on a recent survey that we sent out on our Facebook page, challenging behavior comes up as one of the most requested topics for professional development. We have seen this same request on our conference feedback forms. As the DEC's mission is to promote evidence-based practices, Ohio DEC decided to issue its first research-to-practice newsletter on challenging behavior.

In this issue: Get to Know the ABCs of Addressing Challenging Behaviors

• Behavior basics
• Summaries of relevant articles from Young Exceptional Children
• How to access DEC journals online (for DEC members only)
• Professional development opportunities
• Resources and publications
• DEC Recommended Practice highlights
• Reminders: DEC Conference Early Bird Registration, Advocacy Training Opportunity