From block funding to individual purchasing in early childhood intervention services: Understanding

Regarding the aims of ECI, there is agreement that the overall aim of early childhood intervention is … to ensure that the parents or other key caregivers are able to provide young children who have developmental disabilities with experiences and opportunities that help the children gain and use the functional skills they need to participate meaningfully in the key environments in their lives (Moo. [...] Dunst (2012) argues that, in the US, ECI was originally defined in terms of ‘the kinds of activities that were intentionally used with young children to produce desired outcomes and consequences.’ The federal ECI legislation introduced in the United States in 1986 redefined ECI in terms of the type and frequency of professional services provided young children and their families, rather than the e. [...] The purpose of these changes are to give children and young people a stronger voice in the services they receive and to produce better outcomes by integrating the provision of services from different areas of government across the period from birth to 25 years. [...] We need a range of options to cater for this spectrum, always keeping in mind the goal – to build the capacity of the family (and ultimately the people with disabilities themselves) to manage their own lives – which is precisely what the NDIS is designed to do Training. [...] But what does this mean for the NDIS, the market-based system that now governs how ECI services are delivered? What the NDIS funds and the way in which the funding is distributed must serve the overall purpose of early childhood intervention: to ensure that the parents or other key caregivers are able to help the children gain and use the functional skills they need to participate meaningfully in.