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In order to provide the most comprehensive services possible, we coordinate with multiple other agencies in Lane County. Each of these agencies provides the children and mothers with valuable services that are currently not available on-site.
One of the agencies we collaborate with is EC Cares of Lane County. EC Cares provides the children with services to address developmental delays as well as behavioral concerns. In some cases, EC Cares acts as the Case Manager for children who may be attending another program in addition to ours, such as Early Education Program or Head Start. They also provide 1:1 support for mothers to assist them in meeting the IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan) goals for their children. When there is a need for additional parent education focusing on behavior difficulties, the families can attend the behavior management parent group. Because our CDC has children active in EC Cares' services, our staff has the benefit of attending ongoing community trainings offered by EC Cares as well as meeting with EC Cares' staff for classroom support.
We have a close collaboration with the Relief Nursery in that we refer the mothers in our program to the Parents for Recovery Group as well as coordinating services related to peer support and case trackers. The Relief Nursery often provides families in our program with play therapy. Encouraging clients to engage in Relief Nursery activities while in treatment increases the likelihood they will remain engaged upon completion.
Another valuable service that we have more recently begun to coordinate with is the Oregon Social Learning Center. Currently, OSLC is providing intensive support to families in our program whose children have demonstrated difficult behaviors. While the services OSLC provides vary, we have received extensive classroom support as well as in-depth 1:1 support for the mothers and children.
Many of the families enrolled in our program are engaged with Head Start services. On several occasions, we have coordinated services with the Head Start classroom to ensure that children continue to receive their services while in treatment. We are careful to ensure that all age eligible children are referred for the Head Start waiting list.
Another program that often serves children in our program is the Early Education Program. The children in our program who also attend EEP do so as a result of having been identified with developmental delays and/or behavior concerns. In this case, we again coordinate with the classroom teacher to ensure that the child receives all necessary services while in our program.
We have an ongoing collaboration with the Department of Human Services (DHS) to ensure that the families are able to access all necessary services. For example, when we have a child struggling with behavior difficulties, DHS can often provide services that would not otherwise be available, such as a parent mentor.
In the past we have worked closely with Scar Jasper Mountain Safe Center for children who were in need of temporary placement based on extreme behavior difficulties that interfered with them being successful in our program.
We often refer families to outside agencies for play therapy; in this case, we have coordinated with several programs such as The Child Center, Options, Center for Family Development, and Looking Glass.
This is not an exhaustive list of agencies that the CDC coordinates with. We also work with Pearl Buck Center and Birth to Three whenever possible, and the list continues to grow. The Child Development Center cooperates with outside agencies depending on the needs of our children and the services available in the community. The effort is truly collaborative as we strive to provide the best services possible to children and families.