Child and Family




​Connections Offices
​Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Illinois Department of Human Services Bureau of Early Intervention and Early Intervention Technical Assistance and Monitoring Program (EITAM) will continue to provide Technical Assistance to Providers, Child and Family Connections personnel, and EI Stakeholders.  We will continue to work with Providers with mail in or remote monitoring reviews if they are capable and able to participate.  Providers that face any hardships and are unable to participate will be granted extensions to assist in the review process or may request their review be postponed to a later date. If you are contacted for a review, please communicate with the staff of EITAM and we will work with you to either complete, extend or postpone the review through this ​COVID-19 pandemic period of time.

COVID 19 Resources

Monitoring Review Tools
​The Early Intervention and Technical Assistance Monitoring Program partners with Child and Family Connections offices (CFCs) to assist them with identifying areas of non-compliance, and in overcoming these challenges.

​Providing and properly documenting Early Intervention Services is a complex task involving multiple stakeholders. But help is available. The following document provides assistance in ensuring compliance. Should your program need to create a Corrective Action Plan, please refer to the Corrective Action Plan Directives document, also listed below. 
Compliance Review Tool
This tool is designed to support CFCs in identifying compliance standards based on policy and procedure.
Action Plan Directives
This document contains instructions for what to include in your Corrective Action Plan should you need to create one. 

Principles of Early Intervention

The following principles guide the state's Early Intervention practices. All plans for service delivery are based upon the unique needs of each child/family and focus on the coordination of developmental activities to ensure that all members of the team involved in a child's intervention, including the family and/or caregiver, are working together. 
  1. The primary goal of Early Intervention (EI) is to build caregiver capacity by supporting their ability to promote their child’s optimal development and to facilitate their child’s participation in family and community activities.
  2. The focus of EI is to facilitate the active participation of families in the EI process by engaging caregivers in the planning and implementation of services, including embedding intervention strategies into family life, such as routines, activities and interactions with their child. It is the family/caregivers who provide the real EI by creatively adapting their caregiving methods to facilitate the development of their child, while balancing the needs of the rest of their family.
  3. EI requires a collaborative relationship between families and professionals, with equal participation by all those involved in the process. An on-going, equal family-professional partnership and dialogue is needed to develop, implement, monitor, and modify intervention strategies and services.
  4. Intervention must be linked to specific, Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) goals that are family-centered, culturally relevant, functional, and measurable using culturally and linguistically responsive and affirming practices. Services and intervention strategies should focus on supporting each family’s IFSP outcomes, as well as promoting child and family outcomes that support communication access.
  5. Services and interventions shall be integrated into a comprehensive IFSP that requires families and professionals work together to consistently exchange knowledge and information with each other. It also requires collaborating across disciplines within the broader early childhood system to increase the team’s capacity to jointly solve problems and implement interventions.  The plan shall be built around family strengths, priorities, resources, routines and activities and avoid unnecessary duplication of services. Services and strategies are based upon the best available research, recommended practices in the field and special education laws and regulations.
  6. Services, interventions and progress should be monitored periodically through ongoing observations and discussions with all team members to ensure that the strategies implemented are successful in achieving outcomes.
  7. Ongoing communication and collaboration with EI professionals, family members and professionals in partnering systems outside of EI, who are supporting each family is encouraged. Ongoing communication among all team members allows for coordinated, culturally-relevant and comprehensive services within and across systems to best support families’ priorities, changing circumstances, and transitions.
  8. Children and their families in the EI Program deserve to have services of the highest quality possible. High standards will be set for the training and credentialing of administrative and intervention staff. Training, supervision, and technology will be focused to achieve excellence.
Adopted by the Illinois Interagency Council on Early Intervention (IICEI) October 4, 2001.
Revised 07/2020, Revised 01/2021