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Early childhood professionals—social workers, educators, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, pediatricians, and others—create the foundation for a life-long duration of experiences that families, who have children with disabilities, will have with various professional groups. The nature of the early childhood interventionists' interaction, treatment, services or supports of the child and the attitudes conveyed to families during these critical early years may be a significant factor in the willingness of families and young adults to continue to pursue therapeutic and supportive services. With insights into early intervention best practices, social workers are likely to find themselves in a preferred position to plan appropriate family-focused intervention strategies that may encourage success and prevent complications or a worsening of specific initial conditions among children with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of vouchers has great potential as a management tool for improving human service delivery options for individuals with complex service needs. The administration of voucher systems can radically change both the processes by which children are assigned to programs and the mechanism for funding and managing those programs. An evaluative survey compared a voucher payment system to the traditional contracting approach for early childhood intervention services. Parents, who have children with developmental delays or developmental disabilities from birth to three years, reported high satisfaction with the services their children received. Costs of services were lower using vouchers than under the traditional funding system, thus, providing the ability to serve more children without increasing the funding base. Children served through vouchers received substantially more individual therapy and other supportive services than their center-based peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]