EXCEPTIONAL. Concordia University School of Human Services 275 Syndicate Street North, St. Paul, MN (651) Fax (651)

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1 project Mar/Apr 2004 Vol. 8, No. 2 EXCEPTIONAL M I N N E S O T A Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota is a statewide network for promoting and supporting inclusive early childhood and school-age programs and providers in Minnesota. This network provides leadership, administrative support, training and consultation to early care and education providers, school-age care providers, parents and the professionals who support providers and parents of children with special needs. Concordia University School of Human Services 275 Syndicate Street North, St. Paul, MN (651) Fax (651) Playhouse Child Care Center s Founders, Melody Peterson and Diane Mendel, Named Minnesota Small Business Persons of the Year Submitted by Kathy Benham We all know how important child care is to families raising children. We also know how hard it can be to find child care and harder yet to find child care when we have a child with special needs. I experienced this first hand when my children were young. I have two boys, twentythree months apart in age. My youngest son was born with hydrocephalus. When I needed child care for my children, Melody and Diane made it possible for my boys to attend their child care center. They did not look at the special needs of my youngest child as a problem to including him in their care. With their knowledge and love for all children, I knew their center would be a place where my boys would be safe and nurtured. I have many thanks to give Melody and Diane for the possibilities they opened for me in my life. They gave me the time and freedom to learn and grow, through opportunities I was able to explore, while knowing my children were in a safe and healthy environment. With this history, I was so pleased when I read the front page of the March 31, 2004 St. Cloud Times Business section. The headline read: Area child care owners honored. The article described a short history of Melody and Diane s journey with their Playhouse Child Care Centers and how they are now being recognized as Minnesota Small Business Persons of the Year. The article was good, but it didn t bring you as close to the kind and dedicated people as I have gotten to know. So here I would like to say, congratulations Melody and Diane, not only for your award and success, but a huge thank you for your love of all children and your dedication to providing care to all children. Inside This Issue... Memo from Cindy Inclusion Consultants Needed...2 Video/Book Review, Anoka Spotlight on Article Assignments Important News About the CCR&R System FYI, Region Article Assignments by Regions.5 Question & Answer Feature.....6

2 Page 2 Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Mar/Apr 2004 Project EXCEPTIONAL (PE) Minnesota Update Memo from Cindy Croft, Project EXCEPTIONAL State Coordinator croft@csp.edu Spring in Minnesota is slowly emerging and it is always a good time to start new beginnings. With that in mind, Project EXCEPTIONAL MN (PEMn) has convened the Inclusive Child Care Committee (ICCC) to provide leadership to our work around successful inclusion of children with special needs in community settings. The ICCC will meet four to six times a year with key state stakeholders. Our goal will be to support children and families by supporting an inclusive child care system. Notes from this meeting will be posted on our website at Another new beginning for us is the Training of Trainers (TOT) in Project EXCEPTIONAL: A Guide for Training and Recruiting Child Care Providers to Serve Young Children with Disabilities offered to Infant Toddler Training Intensive (ITTI) trainers. They are participating in the online TOT and will be joining existing teams across the state. Also included in this group are two new trainers for the White Earth Indian Community who will join four other PEMn trainers. Their names will appear in the next newsletter. Plans are underway to train a new bilingual group of PEMn trainers in Somali and Hmong. This is an exciting adventure for us and will be enriching to everyone involved. The website is being renovated to include an area specific to cultural needs related to children with disabilities. As you discover new resources, please forward them to me for posting on our website. Children and Child Care: Making Inclusion Work, Vol. 1 & 2, is being published now and will be available soon. Volume 1 will be a good resource as a college text in addition to being part of the Project EXCEPTIONAL MN training curriculum. Trainers certified in this curriculum will receive a copy from me, but others who are interested in purchasing the book can contact me at croft@csp.edu. Thank you for your continued work in supporting early childhood and school-age practitioners in including all children into their settings. Inclusion Consultants Needed Submitted by Chris Bentley and Dea Anderson Many Inclusion Consultants have been trained through Project EXCEPTIONAL MN (PEMn) and we are looking for individuals who are currently active and available to receive referrals. Please connect with us and visit the PEMn on-line chats and bulletin board. We are finalizing the documents to formally launch this support to providers and we need your help! We will list inclusion consultants in the consultant database for referral and need to assure that all information is accurate. There is limited funding, but some areas will have additional support funding and we will also provide support in researching funding options for providers and families. If you are not currently an inclusion consultant and would like more information, please contact Chris Bentley at chris@fraser.org or Dea Anderson at dea@fraser.org.

3 Mar/Apr 2004 Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Page 3 Video/Book Review Submitted by the Anoka Team Challenging Behaviors in Early Childhood Settings - Creating a Place for all Children, by Susan Hart Bell, Victoria Carr, Dawn Denno, Lawrence J. Johnson, and Louise R. Phillips Available through: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company This book is about children with challenging behavior. So what s new? Why do I think it is a good book? The reason is how it is written. Many books with similar topics have much of the same information. This book has text with many quotes that I have read before or that sound familiar. However, at the end of each section it does something different. It not only tells you what research says, but it goes on to add an essential tie. At the end of every segment there is a piece called: CLASSROOM APPLICATION. Key questions are asked, or comments are made to prompt the reader to reflect on how to apply the research in the classroom. This book also has several vignettes in each chapter about actual children and classroom situations. I found myself marking the book to use while I train PEMn curriculum: Children & Challenging Behaviors: Making Inclusion Work. I plan on using some of the vignettes to make points about transitions, group time, and all of the other classroom routines that teachers of young children struggle with every day. It also has a chapter on dealing with parents and making them active partners in the early childhood setting. (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this article from Region 6E.) Comments from a Training (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this comments section from Hennepin.) May/June 2004 Newsletter SPOTLIGHT On... Dakota, Region 3, Region 8, Region 6E, Region 9 and Hennepin These are the teams that will contribute information for our next newsletter. We will be looking forward to their articles. Let s Keep in Touch - Dakota Question/Answer - Region 3 For Your Information - Region 8 Video & Book Review - Region 6E Fresh Ideas - Region 9 Comments/Training - Hennepin Reminder: Please , send or fax articles to Kathy Benham by May 21st. Thank you! If you have forgotten to submit an article when you were assigned one, please submit it to Kathy even if it is past the deadline. Kathy Benham, th Ave SE, St. Cloud, MN Phone and fax: (320) rkbenham@aol.com

4 Page 4 Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Mar/Apr 2004 Important News About the CCR&R System Submitted by Cindy Croft The Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) system is changing! Based on growing demand and diminished resources, the CCR&R system in l997 implemented an assessment, which then began a two-year long process of planning and selfevaluation of their service deliver process. As a result, a new service delivery model was developed which includes 19 CCR&R programs throughout the state which will continue to delivery services on a local basis; six programs to provide services in six geographically-based districts that cover the state, one statewide Tribal District to provide services to the seven Ojibwe Reservations, and four Dakota Communities in Minnesota. The new system design is based on an assessment of what activities and functions are best provided on which of three different levels of service delivery: Fresh Ideas (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this article from Region 9.) local (identified as baseline services), district (identified as scale services) and statewide (identified as state services). Baseline Services: The current 19 CCR&R programs will all deliver services within their current geographical service delivery areas. These local/baseline services include, but are not limited to, provider recruitment and retention, partnerships and collaborations, and working with community members and advisory committees. Scale/District Services: The six new CCR&R service districts (created from two to four current regional CCR&R service delivery areas) will deliver services, which could be combined or centralized for a larger geographical area. These district/scale services will include, but are not limited to, training coordination, referrals to parents who are looking for child care, data collection, and grants administration. One Statewide Tribal Service District, MN Tribal Resources for Early Childhood Care (MnTRECC): MnTRECC will connect and provide services to Minnesota s seven Ojibwe Reservations and four Dakota Communities. CCR&R Network Office: The current CCR&R Network office will continue to provide statewide services including, but not limited to, program and resources development, child care data analysis and reporting, dissemination of child care and other early childhood information, and ensuring programs and services are accessible and relevant for all Minnesota s families and communities. (Excerpted from DHS Bulletin # ) What this means for Project EXCEPTIONAL training delivered through the CCR&R system is that your teams will still be local but will also include other geographical-based training teams. This is how the new Baseline services have been combined into each of the six Scale services (bolding indicates Scale District): Northwest District Regions: 1, 2, & 4 Northeast District Regions: 3, 5, 7E, Leech Lake CCR&R Midwest District: Regions: 6W, 6E, 7W, 8 Southern District Regions: 9 and 10 West Metro District: GMDCA, Scott/Carver CAP CCR&R, Dakota CAC CCR&R East Metro District: Ramsey County Resources for Child Caring, Anoka CAP, Washington County Community Services I hope to meet with each PE training team and CCR&R Training Coordinator this summer in order to support the new larger training teams and the work of the CCR&R s as they deliver PE training. Please feel free to call me with any questions at (651)

5 Mar/Apr 2004 Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Page 5 FOR YOUR INFORMATION Submitted by Dorothy Wolden, Region 3 Serving as president of the Duluth Association for the Education of Young Children (AEYC) this year has been a wonderful experience as a professional. Like most of us, I wear many hats, family child care provider and Project EXCEPTIONAL MN trainer among them. A leadership role in our local AEYC has enriched my perspective on the field of early care and education. This year, Duluth AEYC and other local and state groups around the country, took on the task of reaffiliation with the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Although a complicated and often daunting process for our small, allvolunteer group, it provided us with tremendous challenges and opportunities for growth as an organization and as professionals. As we worked through the process with many committee meetings, phone calls, s, and drafts of documents, I gained a fresh appreciation for the tremendous commitment of my colleagues, to children and families and their own professionalism. I believe the work of trainers is inextricably related to the work of caregivers and teachers (indeed, many of us combine them in our daily lives). This is the perspective we must maintain as we prepare and conduct trainings - our participants each with a head as full of hats as our own, deserve our respect and encouragement. Let s keep the professionals, with their unique needs and gifts, in mind as we plan for their growth and ours, as well as the children and families we all serve. (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this article from Region 8.) There are currently over 250 people who have electronically subscribed to the Project EXCEPTIONAL MN newsletter! If you or someone you know wants to subscribe electronically or sign up their organization, GO TO: AND SIGN UP! 2004 Article Assignments to Training Teams by Region Please , send or fax your articles to: Kathy Benham rkbenham@aol.com Address: th Ave. SE, St. Cloud, MN Phone & Fax: (320) May/June 2004 Let s Keep in Touch - Dakota Question/Answer - Region 3 For Your Information - Region 8 Video & Book Review - Region 6E Fresh Ideas - Region 9 Comments/Training - Hennepin July/Aug 2004 Let s Keep in Touch Scott/Carver Question/Answer Region 1 For Your Information - Anoka Video & Book Review - Ramsey Fresh Ideas - Region 7W Comments/Training - Region 6W Let s Keep int ouch (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this article from Dakota.)

6 Page 6 Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Mar/Apr 2004 QUESTION & ANSWER FEATURE Submitted by Scott/Carver Question: A child care provider in my training told me about a parent of a child with a disability in her child care program who doesn t understand the whole Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) process. The parent isn t sure if she can ask for certain services for her child or not. Where can I refer her? Answer: PACER Center is a national organization based in Minnesota that provides free services to parents who are seeking help in understanding special education services for their children. Their mission is to expand opportunities and enhance the quality of life of children and young adults with disabilities and their??? families, based on the concept of parents helping parents. With assistance to individual families, workshops, materials for parents and professionals, and leadership in securing a free and appropriate public education for all children, PACER s work affects and encourages families in Minnesota and across the nation. For more information, go to or phone them at (952) (Reminder: Next newsletter issue, this article from Region 3.) Tell A Friend About GOAL: The goal of Project EXCEPTIONAL is to increase the number and quality of inclusive child care and education programs for young children with disabilities in Minnesota. Article Preparation & Newsletter Editing: Kathy Benham, th Ave. SE, St. Cloud, MN 56304, (320) Newsletter Design Production: Lynette Brannan, LB Productions, Parkview Drive, Becker, MN 55308, (763) Project EXCEPTIONAL Minnesota Web Site: PE MN Contact: croft@csp.edu Address Service Requested project EXCEPTIONAL M I N N E S O T A Concordia University, School of Human Services Cindy Croft, PE State Coordinator 275 Syndicate Street North, St. Paul, MN Non-Profit Org. US POSTAGE PAID Permit No St. Paul, MN