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.
Corrective 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 EI is to support families in promoting their child’s optimal development and to facilitate the child’s participation in family and community activities.
  2. The focus of EI is to encourage the active participation of families in the therapeutic process by imbedding intervention strategies into family routines. It is the parents who provide the real early intervention by creatively adapting their child care 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 providers, with equal participation by all those involved in the process. An on-going parent-professional dialogue is needed to develop implement, monitor, and modify therapeutic activities.
  4. Intervention must be linked to specific goals that are family-centered, functional, and measurable. Intervention strategies should focus on facilitating social interaction, exploration, and autonomy.
  5. Intervention shall be integrated into a comprehensive plan that encourages transdisciplinary activities and avoids unnecessary duplication of services. The plan shall be built around family routines, with written home activity programs to encourage family participation in therapeutic activities on a daily basis.
  6. Intervention should be monitored periodically to assure that the strategies implemented are successful in achieving outcomes.
  7. Children and their families in the Early Intervention System 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