Participants: Stephanie Bissonette, Betsy Devaney, Ruth Dennis, Susan Edelman, Ron Robin, Liz Jordan-Shook, Peggy Gallant, Michael Giangreco.

Update since last meeting:

• Identified individual people to draft sections for the individual disciplines. Listed on pgs 10 & 11 of the working draft. Heard from Marty Houghton (audiology), Stephanie Bissonnette (partial for vision and O & M), Ann Geroski (counseling), Bryan Dague (Rehab Counseling), Chris Knippenberg (OT).
  
  
• Sent most recent version out to everyone who had participated, expressed interest and VCDR Board of Governors list. Received a modest number of responses from people, mostly professionals but some consumers. Feedback on Guidelines themselves has been pretty positive. Ideas and suggestions people made have been incorporated as much as possible into the draft shared today. Editing help will be needed to be sure that suggestions for rewording are carefully considered and addressed.
  
  
• Michael will meet with the Vermont Department of Education's Family and Educational Support Team on 1/20/98 and the RS Workgroup activities will be a major part of the agenda. Michael will send most recent version to Susan Cano (VT DOE) ahead of time for review.
  
  
• Definitions group (Ruth Dennis and Liz Jordan-Shook) have a draft of that section started. Ruth is hoping to get some specific feedback from Art Cernosia.
  
  
• Legal information - article by Mary Jane Rapport shared with Judy Dixon, Paul Fassler, and Art Cernosia. Paul responded indicating some reservations. Mike will follow-up on this. A follow-up call to Judy Dixon (VT Disability Law Project) on 1/14/98 resulted in a suggestion that the "legal" and "Medicaid" sections of the Related Services Guidelines be presented in the form of common questions about related services and answers provided in an informative, but friendly (non technical) manner. To facilitate this Michael Giangreco is making contact with people at the Vermont Parent Information Center and Parent to Parent to inquire about the questions they receive most frequently about related services and Medicaid funding of related services.
  
  
• Medicaid- Chris Mulvaney has changed jobs but current job is related. He is still planning to participate in the writing. Joan Stasulis is the person at Vermont Department of Education who is involved with Medicaid. Susan Edelman will be contacting her to ask for her assistance and involvement in this project.
  
  

Next Steps:

• Based on suggestions of some members of the group, Michael Giangreco asked if we might consider an alternative strategy for completing the tasks of this group. One idea is while we are continuing to move forward on the completion of the whole document, that we ask the VT Dept. of Education to publish in a brochure format just the guidelines as an intermediary product. Discussion
  • who gets material and how it gets disseminated is an issue-needs to be made very clear to those who receive the document that they need to share it with others
    
  • intermediary document couldn't hurt
    
  • training is an issue re: preparing people to implement practices in the guidelines
    
  • A lot of info in the Guidelines section can be put to use right away.
    
  • A draft form of such a brochure/flyer could be sent out
    
  • The purpose of sending the document out needs to be clear. If it is for comment, how they will respond will have to be spelled out. If the purpose is to try stimulate people to do things differently in practice, sending out any paper won't achieve this. There are costs to such a dissemination. Is this idea cost-effective?
    
  • Mike's view of the purpose is to get more people on the same wavelength, to inform people about good practice AND to get people to respond and give their input toward a final draft.
    
  • The SDE is interested in seeing a completed document on or before June 30.
    
  • Mike asked for help dividing up the contacts to prompt the contributing people to respond (p. 10 &11).
    
  • We might want consider a workday or longer meeting to do writing, editing together.
    

1. The following contacts will be made to prompt completion of draft writing tasks within two weeks:

   Discipline	Contact Person	Who Will Prompt
   Speech/Language	Patty Prelock	Liz
   Audiology	Marty Houghton	Mike
   Hearing Support	Paige Russell	Susan
   Vision Support	Stephanie, Jules	Stephanie
   Orientation & Mobility	Stephanie, Jules	Stephanie
   Physical Therapy	Susan, Betsy Gossens & Ann Wright	Susan
   Occupational Therapy	Chris Knippenberg	Mike
   Psychological Serv.	Rich Reid	Betsy
   Counseling	Ann Geroski	Mike
   Rehab Counseling	Bryan Dague	Mike
   Social Work	Kathleen Kirk-Bishop	Betsy
   Health/Medical	Steve Contompasis	Ruth
   Recreation/Ther Rec	?? (Laura Farrell?)	Liz
   * Chigee offered a suggestion to contact Susan Kasser, new UVM faculty member in PE who has experience in adaptive PE and recreation.
   Assistive Technology	Lynne Cleveland	Susan

   As we make contacts and if folks are unable to complete the work, ask them for suggestions and go ahead and act on it or call Mike. Ask for material to be in two weeks with the understanding that at the next meeting we will be working on editing together.
   
   

2. Check Code of Federal Regulations re: "early identification and assessment" - what does this mean? Should EEE people be the ones to write this? (Mike)
   
   
3. Transportation- Mike will check with lawyers about this area.
   
   
4. In prep for the working session, CDCI folks who can (Ruth, Mike, Ron, Susan) will do a group edit before sending out to participants -- scheduled for March 11, 1998, 9:00 a.m. to noon in Room 443 of Waterman Bldg. at UVM.
   
   
5. NEXT MEETING: March 25, 1998 (9:00- 12:00) Room 443 Waterman Bldg. at UVM. Park across street in Visitor lot (on College Street just west of S. Prospect St). PLEASE RSVP if you are planning to attend by calling or emailing Michael Giangreco (656-1144 or mgiangre@zoo.uvm.edu). This will allow us to arrange parking vouchers for those who need them and send the most updated information to participants prior to the meeting. Those people planning to attend the next meeting should be prepared to assist in editing.