Services for Families

All services provided by the Child Care Inclusion Challenge Project (CCICP) are free of charge and confidential. CCICP provides services to families, including:

• The opportunity to work one-on-one with a Community Resource Parent;
• Support in finding child care that is appropriate to families' needs;
• Support in maintaing a positive match between families and providers;
• Information on other community resources that may be helpful to both families and providers.

If you have a child with special needs, but you don't think that you meet the criteria above, call Support for Families of Children with Disabilities (SFCD). Support for Families may be able to assist you with other resources.

Community Resource Parents

Each Inclusion Project family is assigned a Community Resource Parent Support for Families who works one-on-one with the family to provide individualized assistance. Family Specialists, who are all parents of children with special needs, help the family find, gain access to and maintain appropriate child care. Community Resource Parents who speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Tagalog are available to work with families who speak one of these languages at home.

Depending on the degree of assistance they require, some families may speak to their Community Resource Parent only once or twice; others may consult the specialist every day for an extended period of time.

The Community Resource Parent also helps families navigate the variety of other services available to families of children with special needs. (See Resources section for more information about these services.)

Legal Services

Families of Inclusion Project children have access to a staff attorney at the Child Care Law Center (CCLC), who has expertise in the disability laws (ADA, Section 504) as they intersect with child care. The attorney can provide information about the rights of children with disabilities and their parents, and the responsibilities of child care providers to serve children with special needs, under the Americans with Disabilities Act and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act.

When appropriate, the attorney may advocate or negotiate with child care providers on the family's behalf with child care providers or refer them to alternate legal resources.

Other Supportive Services

Through Support for Families of Children with Disabilities (SFCD), Inclusion Project families are given opportunities to:

• attend trainings
• work with parent mentors
• attend support groups.

Child Development Specialists

If a child is already in child care but the family would like the provider to receive some additional support, Child Development Specialists from the Children's Council and Wu Yee Children's Services are available through the Inclusion Project to work with providers.

Child Development Specialists all have masters degrees in child development or a related area, and are available to make site visits to child care centers, family child care homes, and license-exempt providers' homes. They work with both the family and the child care provider to gain information about what services the child is currently receiving, what the child's strengths are, and in what areas it would be helpful to assist the child.