Free Essay Sample about Family Centered Approach to Early Intervention

Every family expects to have children with no health problems. However, whenever a family learns that one of their offspring has a health condition, they must learn how to manage the issue. It becomes important to involve the facilities of a health practitioner and go for therapy sessions when need be so that the child can adapt to the surroundings in the best possible way. Family intervention sessions become important as they help the parents and other individuals to have a smooth transition as they handle the child. In addition, a family requires the emotional and psychological support so that they can extend their love and attention to the child with special needs(Darrah et al., 2011). A child living with cerebral palsy needs special care as well as therapy sessions which will help them live well despite the health condition limiting them from living like other individuals. Therefore, a support system which has a strong communication skill, as well as special knowledge on how to handle the patient, becomes a requirement for the family. The family-centered approach handles the therapy sessions for the child with cerebral palsy as they understand the development needs. Therefore, it becomes necessary to address the social-emotional skills, adaptation, and communication skills for the child. This means that the therapist focuses on the best methods on how the child and their parents can communicate with each other. This means that the therapist understands that each child is unique and personalizing their needs is the only solution for the caregivers and the kid to understand each other. In the case study, the 28 months-old child attends therapy sessions, and its parents want the center-based program to focus on training her to walk, even though her toes and reflexes are not in the proper position. A therapist understands the demands and pressure parents face as they bring up a child with disabilities, but have to apply the proper medical procedures and protocols so that the kid can grow properly.

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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) formulated in 2004 dictates that members of a family should be actively involved in the lives of their children. They have the obligation of choosing the family intervention facilities that will handle their children with the aim of helping the kids grow well (Raver & Childress, 2015). In the case study, the parents of the young 28-months old girl have helped choose the facilities in which the child can get medical attention as well as therapy sessions. Their opinions and perceptions are important as they are included in the personalized family service plan(Law et al., 2011). In light of this, the parents require their child to get more assistance on her ability to use the walker. The parent's motivation to have the child walking is because they would want her to participate in an upcoming wedding. However, the child faces difficulties in managing to balance her toes as they seem flexed on it which means she is not getting the right training. As a professional who has handled some cases before, the therapist has a responsibility of communicating with the parents on the best approach to accord the child (Darrah et al., 2011). The important thing is to maintain open communication with the parents and engage them on the relevance of having a functional family-professional collaboration. Consultation takes place between the two since they are both active in the life of a child living with disabilities. Hence, it is important for the therapist to inform and train the parents on the need to have the child decrease her muscle tone activities and instead focus on having her improve her lower extremity weight bearing. Collaboration allows the family and therapist to consider the best interests of the child in every decision undertaken despite the preference of each side. Finding the right balance is paramount in arriving at the best decision where the family preferences and professional therapist input focuses on the mutual needs of the child.

The therapist will introduce the concept of having the young child living with the cerebral palsy focus on decreasing her muscle tone to the family. This is easier since the family-therapist collaborative relationship will create an enabling environment for the family to understand (Dirks &HaddersAlgra, 2011). Training the child to walk on her toes may have negative implications on her back since she does not place her foot flatly on the ground. The parents might be happy that their child can walk though from a professional point of view, the child may have more difficulties in the long-term. Cerebral palsy is a condition that requires the parents to understand that their child will take longer than expected to respond to treatment options extended to them. This means that despite the training children get from the beginning. They will not adapt immediately. This justifies the reason why the young child has not fully mastered the art of walking despite using a walker. Professionally, it would be prudent to have the child improve on her lower extremity weight bearing before she can know how to control her reflexes. The open communication between the family and therapist from the center-based program will help the young child's caregivers understand the relevance of taking every step of rehabilitating the kid at a go (King et al., 2004, March).

With the understanding that parents want the best for their child, it will be easier to adjust the learning process with ease. The service providers at the center-based program will give their professional services and have the child living with cerebral palsy work towards her muscle tone reduction. For instance, they might take more time with her until she masters the right posture. This will make it easy to engage in other training sessions like management of her weight bearing. This means that with a proper weight bearing capabilities, the child will be in a position to walk after practicing using the walker. The family needs to have the patients and commitment despite the number of relapses the child might have during this process. It would be important to show the child some level of understanding and encouragement so that they can respond to treatment and therapy session (King &Chiarello, 2014). When the child has fully mastered her weight bearing balance, it will be easy to consider the individualized family service plan. It is more important to have the therapist incorporate the personalized and customized family-service plan in the treatment but still consider the progress of a child in their development stages. It helps reduce the conflict of interest between the two parties and improve the possibility of having the child respond faster to all programs.

References

Darrah, J., Law, M. C., Pollock, N., Wilson, B., Russell, D. J., Walter, S. D., ...&Galuppi, B. (2011). Context therapy: a new intervention approach for children with cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 53(7), 615-620.

Dirks, T., &HaddersAlgra, M. I. J. N. A. (2011). The role of the family in intervention of infants at high risk of cerebral palsy: a systematic analysis. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 53(s4), 62-67.

King, G., &Chiarello, L. (2014). Family-centered care for children with cerebral palsy: conceptual and practical considerations to advance care and practice. Journal of Child Neurology, 29(8), 1046-1054.

King, S., Teplicky, R., King, G., & Rosenbaum, P. (2004, March). Family-centered service for children with cerebral palsy and their families: a review of the literature. In Seminars in pediatric neurology (Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 78-86).Elsevier.

Law, M. C., Darrah, J., Pollock, N., Wilson, B., Russell, D. J., Walter, S. D., ...&Galuppi, B. (2011). Focus on function: a cluster, randomized controlled trial comparing childversus contextfocused intervention for young children with cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 53(7), 621-629.

Raver, S. A., & Childress, D. C. (2015).Collaboration and teamwork with families and professionals.Family-centered early intervention: Supporting infants and toddlers in natural environments, 31-52.