We also began to brainstorm a list of critical aspects for EI/ECSE in Oregon (e.g., seamless systems, continuum of services), but ran out of time. Dave created a page on the Oregon DEC website called “EI/ECSE Tomorrow” to continue the conversation as well as Korynn put up a request for ideas on our Oregon DEC Facebook page.

http://decoregon.org/?page_id=847

Dave shared with everyone the EI/ECSE flyer that he revised. There is no contact person on the flyer of whom we still need to identify. Also, during the meeting, Dave summarized the first Early Learning Council meeting. The location for the second Early Learning Council meeting has changed. Here is the latest info:

November 10, 2011 10:00 am – 1:00 pm Oregon State Capitol – Hearing Room A 900 Court St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301

We talked about meeting with the Early Learning Council or at least focusing on one of the members, Dick Withnell, as he has suggested that stakeholders need to be involved and be given a voice as the framework comes together for early childhood care and education in Oregon. Dave said he would follow up with Dick Withnell and either organize a forum or inquire about a small group of us to meet with him if he is available.

Present: Melissa Williams, Bruce Sheppard, Pam Deardorff, Tom Udell, Jantina Clifford, Dave Allen, Brandy Ethridge, and Kristi Byfield

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) OAEYC Fall conference, b) ECE regional forums, c) Oregon DEC memberhsip, d) legislative updates and Early Learning Design team, e) Oregon addendum to the NAEYC/DEC position statement on inclusion, and f) Early Learning Challenge.

a) OAEYC Fall Conference Update: currently requesting proposals. June 15th was set as the initial date for reviewing proposals but that probably won’t happen until later in the month. Dave will be sending out a request to higher ed. institutions for student poster presentations. The poster presentations would be held at the end of the day on Friday, October 14th.  Tom put together a draft requesting proposals specifically related to EI/ECSE.  Send your feedback to Tom: udellt@wou.edu and he will get it to Dave to distribute.  Oregon DEC would like the OAEYC sessions to be broader and more inclusive (talking about differentiated instruction, UDL, etc.) and so we decided in the last meeting to have a session at the OAEYC conference with trainers on how to make their topics more inclusive. Dave shared this idea with Merrily which she welcomed. We are planning on a three hour session. Melissa would be interested in helping with this, but doesn’t feel she can lead it. Jantina is thinking the doctoral students might be interested as well but is currently over-committed herself. Dave will send out a request to other Oregon DEC members to see if someone might be interested in participating. In addition to the OAEYC conference, there is the Infant & Early Childhood Conference put on by RISE  on November 4-5th and the Early Head Start and Infant/Toddler Conference in August (see the Events page).  One idea that was discussed was to look at combining OAEYC and RISE together for one large early childhood conference rather than having something separate.  This might help attract more individuals to OAEYC and Oregon DEC as well as bring in new topics/speakers.

Present: Dave Allen, Jantina Clifford, Pam Deardorff, Chiara Maltese, Kathy Moxley, Tom Udell, Bruce Sheppard, & Korynn Underwood.

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) Summary of OAEYC Spring Conference and Grand Articulation Summit, b) Fall OAEYC Conference, c) DEC Membership Update, d) Best Practice Guides, and e) Regional Early Childhood Forums

a) Thoughts on OAEYC Spring Conference and Grand Articulation Summit. How did it go?

• Jantina thought the Grand Articulation Summit and Conference both went well.
• Tom thought some things got started at the summit which have a lot of potential and useful in terms of the future planning around the inclusion competencies.
• Kathy liked all topics and speakers. Valued collaborative process.
• Saturday conference: Kathy and Jantina presented. Kathy presented on the ASQ. She had about 30 participants. Kathy thought the session went well and helped to dispel myths and preconceptions about using screening tools and assessments with young children.
• Jantina presented on the Social Emotional Assessment Measure (SEAM). The SEAM was initially developed for infant and toddlers, but has expanded to preschoolers. After the presentation, eight individuals signed up to use the measure.
• Merrily thought the EI/ECSE sessions were the most well attended.

b) Thoughts on OAEYC Fall Conference

• When are proposals due for Fall? Mid-July. Dave mentioned that it is not a highly competitive process.
• Tom was going to write up a statement about Oregon DEC as an addendum to the proposal application.
• Dave talked with Merrily about broadening out the sessions to support inclusion. Merrily suggested that we hold a “Train the Trainers” workshop to discuss with presenters how they might make their topics more inclusive in thinking about different learners.
• Pam proposed that we use the fall conference as a spring board to get the concept going at the conference. Trainers are always looking for adult education trainings to meet their requirements.
• Jantina is teaching a curriculum course this summer. Students could partner with trainers for the Fall conference or review past proposals and provide feedback about making particular sessions more inclusive.
• The 2012 OAEYC Fall Conference will be co-chaired by Hadiyah Miller and Katie Kissinger. They were excited about ECE and EI/ECSE doing some co-training in the individual sessions.
• Dave would like someone else to attend the conference planning sessions — maybe someone would like to be an OAEYC conference planner. Do we know of anyone who might be interested? Chiara mentioned not having been to one but maybe being interested. Bruce could help find someone. Korynn will ask at CESD. The planning sessions are held on the second Wednesday of each month in Gladstone at the OAEYC office.
• The OAEYC Fall conference will give us something concrete to work on and maybe we can bring more people in to work on it whether they are members or not.

• Action: Dave will talk to Merrily about our proposal for an adult learning session about making individual topics more inclusive.

c) Oregon DEC Membership Update

• As of March, we have 13 subscribers and 56 national members.

d) Update on Best Practice Guides

• Mentoring was added to the brainstorm list from last month.
• Dave talked about accessibility to databases to do research. To be able to access the PSU database, an individual would need to come to campus. He wasn’t sure if this were the same for other Universities. Dave suggested that individuals could use their county libraries’ databases to conduct research and faculty could forward articles to the person doing research if that person could not access the articles through their county library.

• Action: All on the call should go to Oregon DEC website and make comments about the Inclusion paper that Chiara has posted.

e) Regional Early Childhood Forums

• Kathy reported that they have conducted three forums, 1) Challenging Behaviors in Early Childhood Settings, 2) Autism, and 3) Supporting Families Involved in Child Welfare: Strategies, Tips, and Tools.
• Oregon DEC was promoted at each forum.
• The forums have been well attended involving early childhood teachers, home care providers, ECSE/EI practitioners, and community members.
• Kathy and other doctoral students organizing the forums have worked with their local Child Care Resource & Referral to market the forums in their newsletters and website as well as provide certificates to participants.
• Dave and Merrily conducted a joint Oregon DEC & OAEYC forum on challenging behaviors in early childhood settings back in February at the Gladstone Center for Children and Families.

Next Meeting The next meeting will be May 31^st at 5 p.m. Please let Dave know if you are planning on attending the meeting.

Present: Dave Allen, Jantina Clifford, Pam Deardorff, Jeannett Sealy, Tom Udell, Korynn Underwood, and Melissa Williams

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) last meeting notes and action items, b) OAEYC Spring Conference and Grand Articulation Summit, c) Oregon’s addendum to the joint NAEYC/DEC paper on inclusion, d) legislative activities, and e) best practice guides

a) We currently have four subscribers. A subscriber card has been drafted by a U of O student/Oregon DEC member. We now need to think about how to increase our subscribership.

• Action: Dave will send out a draft of the subscriber card for review. All members on the call tonight should provide feedback.

b) Dave continues to work with the OAEYC conference planning committee. Jantina and Kathy Moxley have done some recruiting for the spring conference and were able to secure two proposals from U of O students, one from herself and another from a colleague in a variety of topics related to serving children with disabilities. There was additional discussion about Oregon DEC’s involvement with OAEYC conference planning. We discussed having a DEC strand at the fall conference. Some were in favor of pursuing this as it could meet the following outcomes 1) provide a forum for DEC to share information about best practices, 2) provide an avenue for EI/ECSE practitioners to access workshops since DEC doesn’t put on a conference anymore, and 3) increase opportunities for joint participation in a conference between ECSE and ECE practitioners to support inclusion. There was also a suggestion to add something to the OAEYC proposal form asking presenters to consider adaptations that could be made for children with disabilities as related to the topic that they are presenting.

• Action: Tom will work on creating a DEC statement that could go out with the Fall OAEYC session proposals that would serve as an Oregon DEC call for papers.
• Action: Dave will check with Merrily to see if she is okay with DEC sending out this special call for papers with her proposals to members and other colleagues who could do sessions related to serving children with disabilities and to see about the possibility of adding the adaptation consideration to proposal form.

April 8^th is the Grand Articulation Summit sponsored by OAEYC. This is an opportunity for professional development providers, community college representatives, and university staff to come together and discuss issues/ideas. This year the focus will be on the rolling out of the Inclusion Competencies that were developed as part of the Early Childhood Inclusion Collaborative. Pam Winton from the National Professional Development Center on Inclusion will be attending this day and will also be the key note speaker the next day, April 9^th, at the Spring OAEYC conference. Money is available through the collaborative for mileage, lodging, and/or other travel cost reimbursements. Contact Tom if you would like more information.

c) Chiara has drafted this paper and it is on the Oregon DEC webpage under Policy Drafts.

• Action: If you are interested in providing feedback on the paper, you will need to first login into the Oregon DEC website. If you do not have a login ID then you will need to first register your name.

d) Korynn has been doing a great job of keeping us all up to date on the Legislative happenings. Legislative days have been organized by the SICC where ESDs sign up to visit legislators. There is a phone meeting tomorrow among early childhood care and education organizations (e.g., Children First for Oregon, Oregon Coalition of Local Health Officials, Chalkboard Project, OAYEC, AFT Oregon, etc.) to talk about the Early Learning Design team. Dave will be participating in this meeting and will pass along the notes from the meeting when he receives them.

e) Dave suggested a strategy of developing “best practice guides” as a way to increase communications between ESDs and service providers about DEC and to establish DEC as the “Best Practice” anchor for Oregon’s EI/ECSE community. These would be one page documents that would include the following components:

• Introduction (why the paper is being written)
• Description of the Topic
• Research Findings
• Bullet point Recommendations

The intended audience for these papers would be policy makers, administrators, and people making decisions about services for young children with special needs.

Some possible topics that were brainstormed:

• Least Restrictive Environment
• Natural Environment
• Typical Settings
• Transition
• Case Load Size
• Assistive Technology
• Curriculum
• Challenging Behavior

Future Meetings: Oregon DEC will continue to meet on the last Tuesday of the Month at 5:00. A face to face option will be at the Oregon Center for Career Development in Childhood Care and Education (OCCD), PSU University Center Building, Conference, room 300. A call in option will also be provided. Next meeting will be April 26^th.

Present: Dave Allen, Jantina Clifford, Pam Deardorff, Chiara Maltese, Kathy Moxley, Mickey Pardew, Bruce Sheppard, and Melissa Williams

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) reactivation of DEC and membership, b) collaboration with OAEYC conferences, and c) Oregon’s addendums for the joint NAEYC/DEC paper on inclusion

a) Dave welcomed all to the phone meeting and did a recap of the reactivation efforts for Oregon DEC.  The Oregon subdivision of DEC has been somewhat dormant since 2005 which was when they hosted the national conference.  There is great need for a group such as Oregon DEC to pull together and provide leadership for advocacy efforts regarding EI/ECSE services in Oregon.  DEC can also provide leadership for quality practice and professional development.  We really need to build our membership and also have a smaller core group of people that will commit to attending monthly meetings for planning purposes.

b) Dave reported that he has been participating in the OAEYC conference planning.  We discussed how DEC can contribute more to these conferences.  The following ideas emerged:

• Recruit presenters from our membership, the broader field of EI/ECSE, and through ESD newsletters

• Bruce will look at the membership list and target folks who may be good candidates for presenting.  Chiara will also talk with her colleagues.

• Create a Oregon DEC statement that would go out with the OAEYC session proposal

• Assist or take the lead with review of proposals that are specific to inclusion and/or children with special needs

• Conduct an informal needs assessment with the community of practitioners that we encounter to determine what topics are wanted or needed

• Establish an Oregon DEC workgroup that would focus on conference planning.  People interested in serving on the group are:

1. o Kathy and Jantina (spring conference) and Melissa and Chiara (fall conference)
   o  Dave will continue to be the liaison to the broader OAEYC planning group – Next planning meeting will be Feb. 9
   o  Dave will e-mail the Oregon DEC workgroups after the OAEYC planning meeting to determine next steps for the spring and fall conferences.

• Also discussed was the formation and ongoing efforts of putting on early childhood forums across the state. There have been two successful forums in Eugene (October and January) and a forum is scheduled in Clackamas County on February 22nd. Dave mentioned that Oregon DEC could develop a one page handout on how to create and conduct a forum.  Kathy will draft something, and then send it to Dave.  If ECE forums could be provided quarterly around the state, then Oregon DEC could use those opportunities to share information about ongoing legislative activities, policy issues related to ECE and EI/ECSE, general news items related to Oregon DEC, and recruitment of more members or subscribers.

c) Chiara reported that she as begun gathering articles and resources to help her draft the Oregon addendums that will accompany the joint NAEYC/DEC  position paper.  She is also planning to conduct some informal get togethers with colleagues and other practitioners to have conversations about inclusion.  She plans to solicit responses to what are we doing and what would we like to see as practices in Oregon.  It was suggested that she may want to use the questions posed in the joint NAEYC/DEC position statement as a guide for her conversation questions.

Next Meeting:

Because Dave is unable to do the next scheduled DEC meeting time on Feb. 22, he will be sending out a Meeting Wizard to find an alternative date.

Next meeting’s agenda will include:

• Report from conference planning group and assist where needed

• Review of board members responsibilities and determine if changes are needed

• Report from Chiara on progress of joint NAEYC/DEC inclusion addendums and provide input as needed

Present: Dave Allen, Tom Udell, Nancy Ford, Bruce Sheppard, Olivia Bass, Melissa Williams, Karen Lawrence, Ami Muilenburg„ and Pam Deardorff

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) Inclusion in Oregon, b) OAEYC Fall and Spring conferences, c) Increasing DEC membership/Oregon DEC subscribership

a) Tom Udell first provided some background about the Inclusion Collaborative — http://centeroninclusion.org/OECIC.htm which is in its third and final year of funding. Under the collaborative, two groups, one focused on professional development and the other focused on policy. The professional development group has drafted a set of competencies for professionals and the policy has made some recommendations to the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) in better supporting inclusion within Oregon. The collaborative has also put together a guidance paper on inclusion.

Some of the challenges discussed with inclusive placements involved the lack of support in with some community placements, families struggling to pay to tuition, and child care programs in some areas don’t have high enough coverage on insurance to meet the criteria for ODE.

On the a positive note, Nancy Ford talked about collaboration with school districts in Washington county where some districts have setup a preschool classroom within a high school or elementary setting. Nancy is in discussion with school district to apply the model. These are district run preschools that include young children special needs receiving services from NWRESD.

The workgroup also talked about the federal definition of inclusion in terms of student ratios (children receiving services and typically developing peers) and the Inclusion Collaborative’s definition of inclusion being any child’s neighborhood community early childhood program. Melissa mentioned that perhaps some special consideration should be given programs that might have more children receiving services than an average community child care program (e.g., Relief Nursery).

b) Dave briefly talked about Oregon DEC’s involvement in helping plan OAEYC’s spring and fall conferences and All Born In’s spring conference. Dave is on both planning committees, but would like to find individuals who would like to work as a small group in partnership with OAEYC and All Born In to help both conferences as well as infuse more presentations from Oregon DEC members/subscribers.

c) We discussed some strategies for increasing both membership and subscribership to Oregon DEC as well has how to increase consistent participation on the board.  A suggestion was made to review responsibilities of board members.  We decided to do this at the next meeting.

Action Steps

• Increase DEC membership
• Build Oregon DEC subscriber base.
• Plan and conduct joint conference with OAEYC
• Establish consistent and committed leadership group/board for Oregon DEC
• Develop and distribute an Oregon specific addendum to go out with the NAEYC/DEC join position paper on Inclusion.
  • The work group discussed writing an addendum to the joint position statement on inclusion by DEC and NAEYC for practitioners and policymakers for Oregon. Dave said he would create a Wiki space for those interested in working on either addendum.

Next Meeting

Discuss Oregon DEC Board Member roles.

Present: Dave Allen, Kathy Moxley, Bruce Sheppard, Patti Blasco, Ellen Dockery-Reger, Donna Barrow, and Ruth Falco

501c3
Discussed benefits: ability to apply for grants, we can assist in paying for a state lobbyist. The lobbyist would stay on top of new bills and legislation, put pressure on representatives, and collaborate with parents and providers to gain strength in numbers.
What needs to happen:

• Have a functioning board that meets regularly
• Accounting system and business plan

Will DEC provide technical assistance to help us establish a 501c3?

• National DEC may be able to provide some support.
• We discussed how we are already in great shape to apply. Dave provided participants with the National Consumer Supporter Technical Assistance Center document, How to Establish a 501c3. We used this as a checklist to establish what we need to accomplish.
• We need a budget and a business plan before we can move forward. Suggest having a future goal of spending $ on website updates.
• We need to accomplish this goal before the end of the year, due to the Oregon Legislature meeting in January.

Subscriber Membership
Dave has talked with DEC regarding the subscriber membership. We would be the first state to accomplish this.

What would be the benefits to subscriber membership?
1. Discounts on Oregon conferences (OAEYC, All Born In, Oregon Mega Conference). Dave will talk with different conference organizers to ok the discount.
2. Quarterly newsletter with information on current projects, research, conferences, legislature updates, hot topics, etc. Ellen volunteered to write the newsletter with members’ help through submissions. The newsletter could be accessed by subscriber members through a personal login access code on the OR DEC website.

• Discussed providing webinars or links to webinars at some point—but will not advertise as a benefit at this point.

3. Access to current research articles and information about research projects around the state.
4. Legislative updates
5. Networking with other members
6. Opportunities for committee leadership and membership
7. Resources for parents

What do we need to do?

• Develop a flyer—Kathy volunteered for this job.
• Develop an application form—Ellen volunteered for this job.
• Decided on a subscriber fee of $20 for first year, may increase this later.
• Our goal is to have the flyer and application form ready by August 30th.
• The subscriber membership fees will be sent to Bruce’s home address.

Discussed further ways of getting more exposure for Oregon DEC.

• Facebook—Ching is working on this. Dave will post links on the DEC website, so every time new info is posted to the website, it will show up on the Facebook page.
• Discussed having a monthly IM chat or Skype chat session. Dave would have to set it up and host it, but we could come up with topics and everyone could contribute.
• Discussed the problem with Google search for Oregon DEC and that we might need a new URL.

Bylaws
Constitution-Article III Membership: Amend and add a section 3 to allow subscriber members.
Bylaws-Article I Membership section 1: describe the subscriber membership and limited role in leadership (not a voting member?, not a board member, can be a committee chair or member)
Discussed voting for board positions.

• Decided that all board positions will be open before December 2010. Nominations will be open as of Oct. 1 and closed Nov. 1. The newsletter will post the positions. Members can nominate someone through Dave by email. Once we have nominations, we will post the candidates bios on the website. We could set up an online voting system using members email addresses (Survey Monkey or similar).

Questions for Political Candidates
1. What does early childhood care and education mean to you?
2. What does Early Intervention mean to you?
3. Why do you think Early Intervention / Early Childhood Special Education is important to children in Oregon?
4. What are your thoughts on funding early childhood programs/services, Early Intervention, and Early Childhood Special Education programs?

These questions will be distributed to our membership with a list of candidates.
The responses will be sent to Ellen’s address, then reported in our newsletter.
We could also include a fact sheet.

Other Discussions
Regional Forums-Dave and Donna are working on a forum in Portland, Kathy is organizing one in Eugene.
Discussed piggy-backing with other meetings and events. Kathy discussed a collaboration with on-going trainings through Early Childhood Cares and Lane Family Connections. Bruce talked about ABCD-3 Community Café discussions.

Present: Dave Allen, Ching-I Chen, Kathy Moxley, and Bruce Sheppard.

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) OR DEC state membership, b) changing OR DEC’s status to 501c3, c) early childhood regional forums, d) updating OR DEC bylaws, e) OR DEC board positions, and f) working group meeting in August.

a) Dave talked about the idea of having a state membership only to increase overall membership and participation in OR DEC. Although there are thousands of EI/ECSE professionals in Oregon, there are currently only 60–65 DEC members from Oregon. Members would pay a minimal fee (e.g., $10) and only be part of OR DEC, but not DEC or CEC. The group thought this was a good idea, and Dave will explore this more with national DEC.

b) Dave talked about the possibility of changing OR DEC’s status to a 501c3. Some of the EI/ECSE contractors have talked about hiring a lobbyist for EI/ECSE. Instead of creating a separate non-profit, the funds to pay the lobbyist would go through OR DEC. However, OR DEC would need to be a 501c3. Dave has spoken with national DEC and they are fully supportive of OR DEC serving as a medium to pay an EI/ECSE lobbyist. Tom Udell has some experience with the paperwork required to become a 501c3 and is reviewing those procedures. Bruce knows a former lawyer that might help in changing our status and will check into that.

c) Dave shared again the purpose of the early childhood regional forums is to increase awareness about early childhood care and education including early intervention/early childhood special education. Three to four groups of people have expressed interest in putting together a forum. Kathy is heading up a group in Eugene that is planning to put on a forum on challenging behaviors in early childhood settings in early October. The group will have some literature and postcards on hand for legislators about increasing EI/ECSE funding. A few people have met in Portland (Dave Allen, Donna Barrow, and Karen Foster) about putting on a similar forum. No firm plans have been set, but the group will meet again at the beginning of August.

d) Dave recently turned in the annual report to national DEC and realized that the bylaws need to be updated. This is especially in lieu of board position vacancies.

e) Given that there are some vacancies on the board, and the current officers have been in their positions for almost a year except for Tom (a whole lot longer), Dave would like to develop a process for nominating and electing new board members.

f) Dave brought up the idea of having a face-to-face working group meeting for a morning or afternoon in mid to late August to put together information needed to complete the paperwork to become a 501c3; develop an application, procedures, and potential benefits for becoming a state member of OR DEC; update OR DEC’s bylawys; and develop a process for nominating and electing new board members. Dave will send out a Doodle poll in figuring out when people can meet. We will try and meet somewhere central based on who is interested in participating in the working group meeting.

One item that wasn’t discussed in the phone conference, but should be discussed at the working group meeting was the questions that were developed for candidates running for governor and the state legislature.

1. What does early childhood mean to you?
2. How important do you think is EI/ECSE to young children and families in Oregon?
3. What are your thoughts about the proposed funding increases for EI/ECSE services?

We need to figure out a process for distributing these questions and tracking candidates’ responses.

Present: Dave Allen, Erin Barton, Nancy Ford, Mickey Pardew, Bruce Sheppard, and Jane Squires.

During the meeting we covered the following topics a) developing regional early childhood forums, b) questions for candidates running for Governor concerning EI/ECSE services, and c) tabling at the Oregon Megaconference.

a) The group talked about developing small early childhood forums across the state in partnership with OAEYC and other early childhood partners. Planning for the regional forums would occur over the summer and the forums themselves would he held in September. Dave will contact Oregon DEC’s regional liaisons about participating or heading up these regional earl childhood forums. Dave will also contact Merrily Haas at OAEYC to get some early childhood contacts across the state in partnering on the early childhood forums. While each region will decide what the topic of their own forum will be, some possible topics include funding for EI/ECSE services, the ABCD Initiative, and universal preschool.

b) Two questions that were proposed for the candidates:

1. How important do you think is EI/ECSE to young children and families in Oregon?

2. What are your thoughts about the proposed funding increases for EI/ECSE services?

These questions are open to feedback so reply to this post if you have any suggestions or want to offer an additional question that you think might be critical to ask the candidates.

c) Oregon DEC will share a table with the State Interagency Coordinating Council (SICC) at the Oregon Disability Megaconference . We are looking for volunteers to table at the conference for an hour or two on either Friday, June 4th or Saturday, June 5th. To volunteer please visit: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/oregon

Next meeting: June 14, 2010 from 5–6 p.m.

The agenda includes recent updates about the regional early childhood forums, refining the questions for the candidates for Governor, and the OAEYC fall conference.