Partnership Patterns: Addressing Emotional Needs in Early Intervention

Abstract

Home visiting in early intervention is the primary model for delivering services and building partnerships with children and families. Using interviews with early interventionists and family members, this study investigated the extent to which families’ and professionals’ emotional needs were met during home visits and what factors contributed to or interfered with the formation of an emotionally supportive partnership. The findings were that the types of emotional needs experienced to one degree or another by both families and professionals included a need to have hope for the child, a sense of urgency to provide interventions, a feeling of being challenged by multiple issues, and a sense of overload. Second, the authors found that the quality of the partnership was dependent on the degree to which there was a match or mismatch in emotional needs between the family and the professional. The data highlight the need to address the emotional needs of both families and early interventionists to build a supportive family-centered partnership. Discussion focuses on the practice and research issues of these findings.

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