Board Update

The year is still new, but your Board has been very hard at work on your behalf. We wanted to take some time to update you on our work and we hope you will find an opportunity to get more involved with the work of the board. We are trying to make a concerted effort to stay more in touch with you and to keep you informed of our activities.

Election of New Board Member
We held an election for a new member. We want to thank those members who were willing to serve on the board and everyone who voted. We welcome, Judy Swett as the newest Board member. You can read more about the election and Judy on our blog.

Election of Officers

The Board elected new officers.  This year's officers are:

President:                                   Nancy Peeler--Michigan

Vice President:                          Kim Travers--Ohio

Secretary:                                   Roxane Romanick--North Dakota

Treasurer:                                   Darla Gundler--Massachusetts

They officers join the following at-large board members: Debbie Jackson--Washingt, Talina Jones--New York, Leah Esther Lax--New York, Mark Smith--Nebraska, and Judy Swett--Minnesota. 

Expanding the Board

The board recently revised its bylaws to insure that turnover of board members will occur on a consistent scheduled basis. Board members will serve for a three year term. Every year, three board positions will be voted on. This will insure that the board continues to grow and reflect family leaders who are involved in fostering meaningful family involvement in the development, implementation and evaluation of policies that influence Part C of IDEA. Over the next few months we will talk more about what being a board member involves so that you can think about whether you have the time, skills and interest in serving.

Staying In Touch

We encourage you to "Like" our Facebook Fanpage and share our posts on your own Facebook timeline. If you use twitter, you can follow our tweets here. We will be updating the blog on a regular basis. We want to hear from you!  We want to hear what you are doing as family leaders to influence the development, implementation and evaluation of policies that impact Part C of IDEA. Please subscribe to the blog so that you can receive all of our updates directly to your inbox.

Call for Presenters

EIFA began to take shape at one of the annual OSEP Early Childhood Conferences. That conference has merged with the PTI and Part B conference, and is now known as the OSEP Leadership Conference and now occurs the first week of August. We at EIFA want to remind you about the call for proposals for the next conference.

Board Retreat

Where to begin?
In our last post, we talked about the Board's efforts to review the membership survey and new membership applications and renewals as part of the Board Retreat preparation. Then the board reviewed our mission: The Early Intervention Family Alliance is an organization of family leaders who are committed to fostering meaningful family involvement in the development, implementation and evaluation of policies that impact Part C at the community, state and federal levels.  Some of you may notice a slight change to the mission, we realized that we not only want to foster involvement in Part C, but also programs that affect Part C, like MCHB, 619, Headstart, Medicaid and others.


The Board also had an intense conversation about what we meant when we said "family leaders fostering meaningful family involvement". We determined that we meant families who had moved beyond advocating on behalf of their own child and had taken on advocating on behalf of other children and families in either their community, program, Local ICC, State ICC or other programs that intersect with Part C of IDEA.


The Board set a priority on membership recruitment, development and retention.  If EIFA is to influence the development, implementation and evaluation of Part C policies, than it must have broad representation. Further, EIFA must have an active and involved membership.  The board takes these two charges very seriously.  Thus the board has set three core workplans for the coming year: Membership Recruitment, Communications and IDEA Reauthorization.   The board believes the second two workplans are actually furtherance of the main priority membership recruitment. We know that to retain members we need to provide value. We also need your input and energy. Below we will describe  the activities we intend to complete this year under each of those priorities and we hope you will consider rolling up your sleeves and joining us!


Membership Recruitment
As our last post stated we reviewed the membership survey and the membership lists over the last few years. We would like to see at least one family leader who is active and involved on issues impacting Part C of IDEA join our organization from each state and territory.  To do that we have decided to once again send out informational materials and applications to each Interagency Coordinating Council in the country.  We have also decided to widen our scope and send out materials to PTIs, P2P and Family Voices organizations in each state. We will also follow up with each organization in this membership drive. To that end we know that we need to review and revise our membership materials.  We would love your help with this important priority which will be lead by Mark Smith of Nebraska.


Communications
In order to provide value to our members we need to increase our communications with you, our members.  We hear you and we hope that by the end of the year you will agree that we have delivered.  We have further refined the purpose of this committee to first embrace the EIFA mission from above to also state that all communications support the EIFA mission, inform members of how a specific issue impacts Part C and include a call to action.  We intend to communicate on at a minimum a monthly basis with our membership, to explore issues that are of importance to our members and that help you to be more effective family leaders.  We would love your help with this priority which will be lead by Maureen Casey of Arizona.


IDEA Reauthorization
As our post on February 20th mentioned, the EIFA has been asked to join other national organizations to begin prioritizing issues of importance for IDEA Reauthorization. As you are aware, the EIFA has its roots in responding to proposed legislation, this is an opportunity for us as family leaders to be involved in drafting proposed legislation. You can review the 2/20 post for more information on the identified priorities for the May meeting, but note that the book is not closed on identifying issues of importance for Reauthorization.  This workgroup will be busy over the next year or so reviewing the current legislation, thinking about where statutory changes rare needed and then crafting language to propose for those changes.   We would love your help with this priority which will be lead by Darla Gundler of Massachusetts

Please email us at: eifamilyalliance@aol.com and let us know which workgroup you would like to join.