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.
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