Assignment Two - Student Services Program Description

Standards for the Provision of Early Childhood Special EducationECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities

     ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities

Medicine Hat Catholic Separate Regional Division No. 20



In the age of accountability, Individual Program Plans (IPPs), objectives and goals, it is important that these written plans are actualized in order to support students’ needs. Below is a visual that represents the programming path for children identified with severe disabilities ranging in age from 2 years 6 months to under 6 years of age in the province of Alberta. This path begins at the government level with ECS written standards and travels down to the written goals and objectives contained within each student’s IPP.

Alberta Education

ECS Standards

Medicine Hat Catholic Separate Regional Division No. 20

ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities

School within MHCSRD No. 20

ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities

Individual Program Plan                        Individual Program Plan

(IPP)                                                    (IPP)

*could not insert created flowchart

A question that arises from this visual is how do written standards become enacted so that the recipients of programming experience the intended standards and outcomes? Program evaluation is one way to monitor and assess this issue. However, the challenge in evaluating the ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities is how to determine if these young children experience the intended outcomes as outlined in their IPPs. Therefore, it would be important to choose an evaluation model that would be utilized by those who are involved in enacting the goals and objectives of IPPs. An evaluation process that would be effective in addressing this unique programming would be the Utilization-Focused Evaluation or U-FE.

What is Utilization-Focused Evaluation?

Foundational to U-FE is that an evaluation and its findings should focus on the “…intended use by intended users” (Patton, 2002, p.1). Utilization-focused evaluation “…is a process for making decisions about issues in collaboration with an identified group of primary users focusing on their intended uses of evaluation” (Patton, 2002, p.1). From the beginning, the evaluator works with the primary users to plan an appropriate evaluation based on the nature and situation of the program. Through this ongoing interactive process, the evaluator and primary users collaborate to determine the following components of evaluation:

• Purpose – formative, summative, process

• Data collection – qualitative, quantitative, mixed

• Design – experimental, naturalistic, quasi-experimental

• Focus – inputs, process, outcomes, cost-benefit

This evaluation process is not static, but instead, is based on situational responsiveness which guides U-FE. Utilization-focused evaluation takes a constructivist approach to evaluation as primary users build their understanding of the process and use of evaluation. By actively being involved in the process, primary users are more likely to implement the findings of the evaluation. Although U-FE is based on collaborative and constructivist learning, the evaluation process is framed by a twelve part checklist that is organized according to the primary tasks of evaluation and the challenges identified for each task.

Why use U-FE for ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities?

Utilization-focused evaluation would be an effective process for evaluating Medicine Hat’s ECS Programming for Children with Severe Disabilities. The foundational framework for ECS programming throughout Alberta is reported in provincial documents which contain detailed standards for ECS programs. The Standards for the Provision of Early Childhood Special Education, September 2006 and the ECS Special Education Handbook 2008/2009 School Year outline the expectations and processes involved with meeting the needs of these young children ranging from requirements for eligibility, funding, programming options and program monitoring and evaluation. However, in order for these provincial documents to be enacted through the IPPs for the identified children, it would be important to involve those intended users of the evaluation and its recommendations. As U-FE advocates, the intended users are more likely to enact the recommendations if they are involved in the process. This evaluation process would provide a collaborative working relationship between the primary users of the findings and recommendations to be implemented. Primary users, as identified by the U-FE checklist, include people who have a direct stake in the evaluation and meet identified criteria. Primary users for this evaluation could include government representation, teachers, teacher assistants, child development specialists and parents. This programming is based on individual program plans, so the reality of evaluating every IPP through U-FE may not be practical, but by piloting this evaluation process with one school, it could provide a model for evaluation that could be implemented and used by primary intended users of programming for children with severe disabilities. Although it may be a challenge to coordinate U-FE, the detailed checklist provides a framework for constructing an evaluation as well as clarifying the roles of the facilitator and intended users. An evaluation could be conducted at the provincial level, but when the use of the evaluation findings will impact users and recipients, it would be more effective to focus on an evaluation from the perspective of the intended users of the findings. Thus, a U-FE could support the actualization of the written provincial standards, but within a framework of how those standards will be enacted to meet the individual needs of children with severe disabilities.





Resource Links:

ECS Special Education Handbook 2008/2009 School Year

http://education.alberta.ca/media/842010/ecs_specialedhdbk2008-2009.pdf



Standards for the Provision of Early Childhood Special Education, September 2006

http://www.education.alberta.ca/media/452316/ecs_specialedstds2006.pdf

Minister of Education.

Alberta Education, Edmonton, Alberta



Utilization-Focused Evaluation (U-FE) Checklist

http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/checklists/ufe.pdf
















































Source:


http://www.education.alberta.ca/media/452316/ecs_specialedstds2006.pdf