From the Editors of the International Portage Association Newsletter - May, 2000

The Portage Project continues to touch the lives of children, families, home visitors, and organizations around the world. We receive inquiries from parents and teachers on a regular basis asking for information about Portage. It is amazing that the Portage materials are translated into more than 30 languages. The International Portage Association is working to develop a framework of support for Portage programs as they develop new programs and seek information on current research and best practices in working with children with disabilities and their families.

The 8th IPA conference to be held in Birmingham, Alabama, US in October 2000 will be an important opportunity to extend our organization as we add new members to the Executive Board. New members from Asia, Americas, and Europe will be welcomed to the Board. The Executive Board is committed to further the development of the organization by increasing membership, enhancing services to members, and continuing to offer valuable conferences for members and friends.

We invite you to contribute to this organization by submitting articles for the newsletter, participating in conferences, organizing training workshops in your country, and communicating your questions and interests. Information about the October Conference, pre conference, and post conference is included in this web site. We look forward to your participation in our growth.

Portage is a good example of a dynamic (as opposed to a static) model of early intervention. In other words, although many of the components of Portage survive intact since its inception in 1969, a number of important changes, additions and adaptations have also taken place over the years. The debate on these changes was initiated by David and Darlene Shearer in the leading article of the October, 1995 issue of IPA News entitled" Has Portage Experienced a Paradigm Shift?"

One major shift has been the emerging research literature on the importance of the child's living/learning environment (Scarr.1992). This has led to a stronger focus on how parents structure the home environment and how home visitors can work with parents to enhance naturally occurring events in this environment to aid learning.

Since March this year, the IPA Executive Board has discussed a proposed set of components for a Portage service that maintains all the proven strengths of the model, yet also broadens these components to incorporate contemporary theories and research in child development. We now feel- that this draft version should be shared with IPA News readers and we welcome your views and comments. 

References:

Scarr. S. (I 992) Developmental theories for the 1990s: Development and individual differences. Child Development 63 1-19.

Shearer. D. and Shearer. D. (1995) Has Portage experienced a paradigm shift? IPA News 11 (October) 1-6.

One of the major strengths of the Portage Model has been the relative ease with which it can be adopted by countries throughout the world. The flexibility of the model has enabled it to respond to widely varying conditions for setting up new services while still retaining components vital to good practice. What are these components? Can we provide a description of Portage practice for use on the IPA website that embraces Portage practice across continents.

Discussion between members of the IPA Executive Committee this year began with reference to the 7 Key Components of the Portage Intervention agreed at the Wisconsin IPA Conference in 1992 ... Our aim then was to set down the essentials, the bare bones of Portage. Now at the end of the century we feel the time has come to expand this description to offer a more rounded view of Portage services in action. We want to express the extensive process of discussion and reflection that occurs at all levels of an effective Portage service. It is a process familiar to all Portage practitioners.

Drawing on your experience we are inviting your comments on our draft proposal.

Key Components of the Portage Model of Intervention for Families of Children who have Special Needs

We would like your answer to the following questions 

1. Does the draft satisfy your idea of the delivery of a Portage service? 

 
2. Do you value the extended descriptions of the activities supporting all aspects of the service? If your answer to either of these questions is NO please consider what specific changes you would make.

 
3. Do you feel that the description omits to highlight important aspects of Portage e.g. positive beginnings, small step change, celebration as the foundation for review. If Yes how would you edit the text to reflect this?

 
4. Is the description jargon free? This was a significant problem and we would welcome concrete suggestions.

Do write / fax / e mail the editors with any text changes or modifications that you would like to see included.

e-mail: herwigj@cesa5.k12.wi.us

The program supports the primary caregivers for the child. Most frequently caregivers are parents; the program also works with childcare providers, foster parents, and other significant caregivers in the child’s life.

Nurture embraces all aspects of parenting and in a sense the word teaching is redundant. Yet the teaching component of nurture has been overlooked by professional educators in many countries. Do we need to highlight its central importance to Portage by including the word teachers ?

Program services are provided in the child’s natural environment. This is most often the child’s home. To maintain consistency across environments, Portage services may also take place in a childcare or other community setting. Regular contact with parents is maintained in addition to contact with caregivers in childcare and other community settings.

The word natural here means the place where the child spends most of his or her time usually the home. At the same time recognition is given to community settings caring for young children. Where Portage services are delivered outside the home in community settings we want to emphasise the importance of involving parents.

Each family has a primary Home Visitor who meets with the family on a regular basis. This Home Visitor establishes a partnership with the family and works with the family and other caregivers associated with the child to establish an Intervention Plan tailored to child and family needs.  Staff members are supported through training and reflective practices in developing relationships with families, utilizing an ecological approach to intervention, and being family centered and strength based as they interact with families.  The staff team participates in regular meetings that include opportunities to reflect on their work and explore different perspectives with supervisors and peers. 

The establishment of a partnership between the Home Visitor and the family is the core of good Portage practice. A focus on the need to support this core relationship is given here drawing on opportunities for supervision and peer exchange at regular staff meetings.

Home Visitors work in partnership with parents and other members of the intervention team to gather information about the child and family. This team may include speech therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and others. This process includes observation of the child and conversations with the family. The developmental assessment process may include play-based assessment, the use of developmental checklists, and other tools based on the individual child and family. The Home Visitor uses many strategies to learn about the family. These may include discussion of resources available to the family, conversations about hopes and dreams for their family, and sharing the family daily routines and traditions. This information is utilized to develop an Individual Intervention Plan with the family, which defines the goals and objectives for the intervention program and defines the specific services to be provided to the family.

We want to offer a holistic description which embraces the diversity of strategies and assessment tools used to gather information as an accepted feature of Portage practice While the Portage Checklist, for example, is common to us all it is clearly not an exclusive tool for checking development. Similarly the strategies included reflect our aim to express everything that happens when we draw on the perspectives and the priorities of everyone involved in sharing information: the child, family members, the Portage team. and associated professionals.

Strategies used to develop the Individual Intervention Plan are integrated into the families daily routines or the routines of the child’s natural environment. The intervention may include strategies to support the child in participating in family activities or the activities of the child care setting or other environment. The Home Visitor may work as a consultant to the family or caregiver as they problem solve strategies to support the child’s development. The interests of the family, developmental checklists, and other curriculum materials will assist the caregivers and Home Visitors in planning intervention. As a part of each visit, the Home Visitor and parent will discuss how they can incorporate intervention strategies into daily routines. Home Visitors and families will choose methods for supporting between visit activities, these may include the daily routine form, home visit report, activity chart, or other method suggested by the parent.

The focus on the integration of Portage activities into the ongoing life of the family highlights the individualised nature of the service offered to families involved in Portage. The negotiation of the format for recording outcomes is part of this process.

We have offered the term Individual Intervention Plan to cover the diversity of local usage e.g. Individual Portage Programme. Family Service Plans, Individual Education Plans.

The project uses multiple methods to provide continuous updates on the child’s growth and development. These strategies include ongoing documented conversations and observations within the context of family life situations. (With parent permission and where resources allow, videotapes of the child and parent together are taken during initial assessment and three to four times a year during the program. These videos are reviewed with parents to celebrate development and to consider intervention strategies.) These various documents are also shared at staff meetings as a part of the case based discussion. Planning is also accomplished by reviewing the child’s progress in the Portage Checklist or (other developmental planning schedule) the Growing Developmental Guide. These tools support developmental guidance as the Home Visitor and parent consider intervention goals. The Individual Intervention Plan is reviewed regularly as outcomes are achieved or circumstances change. This review is done in partnership with the parents, Home Visitor, and other professionals working with the child and family. New or revised goals and intervention strategies are developed as a part of this annual review.

Regular review of progress, the celebration of success and the use of problem solving strategies to address problems is common to Portage practice. Here again we have expressed the range of strategies that can contribute to this process.

The Portage Project is a learning organization. We are looking both internally and externally to learn about effective strategies for supporting the growth and development of young children with disabilities and their families. Contributions to this process come from both Portage practitioners and the families they work with. Opportunities are provided for researchers to review, research, and evaluate current practice and make recommendations for modification and extensions of the Portage model.

The need for a dynamic view of Portage is stressed here. Joint participation in systematic research and evaluation is critical to maintaining high standards of practice. Here we stress the need to involve everyone working within the Portage model in the process of research and dissemination.