Michigan’s Child Care Expulsion Prevention (CCEP) Program, Early Childhood (0-5) Mental Health Consultation Services

How Will CCEP Services Work

for My Child and Family?

Infants, toddlers and preschoolers are usually referred to CCEP because of challenging behaviors that are causing problems at child care. CCEP services are provided by trained early childhood mental health consultants who know that challenging behaviors don’t mean that a child is “bad” – just that the child is trying to tell the adults in his life that “something isn’t right.”

It’s the consultant’s job to work with the child’s parents and child care provider to identify the child’s strengths, figure out what the underlying reason for the challenging behaviors might be, and then come up with ideas to help the child. There are six parts to CCEP consultation services:

  1. Referral and Intake

If your child is referred to CCEP, the CCEP consultant will ask you and your child care provider some questions about your child, explain how CCEP works, and answer any questions you may have.

If you decide to try CCEP, you will sign a form giving the CCEP consultant your permission to work with you and your child. You may also sign a form giving the consultant your permission to share certain information with certain people. You can withdraw from CCEP services at any time.

  1. Collecting Information about Your Child

Once the CCEP consultant has your permission to work with you and your child, the consultant will begin to pull information together to get some ideas about what may be causing your child’s challenging behaviors. He or she will:

  1. Talk with you and your child care provider about your child’s strengths and challenging behaviors.
  2. Ask you and your child care provider to fill out a questionnaire about your child’s strengths and challenging behaviors.
  3. Observe your child at the child care program several times.
  4. Observe your child at your home, if you agree to this.
  5. Pull all of this information together in a way that makes sense and share it with you and your child care provider.
  1. Meeting to Develop a Positive Child Guidance Plan

Once the consultant has pulled some information together, he or she will arrange an informal meeting with your child’s team. Your child’s team will include you, your child care provider, your CCEP consultant, and anyone else you would like to invite. At the meeting, the team will look at the information the consultant has collected and talk together about what may be causing your child’s challenging behaviors. Then the team will come up with a plan to help your child. The plan will have clear, specific goals for your child, based on his or her particular strengths. It will also have strategies for the child care provider to try and strategies for you to try. As the child’s parent, you are the one who knows your child best, so you will have a very important part in helping to create the plan.

  1. Support for You and Your Child Care Provider to Put the Positive Child Guidance Plan into Action

After the Positive Child Guidance plan is developed, the consultant will be there to help you and your child care provider try the strategies that the team agreed to put into action. The consultant or provider will contact you at least once a week (at a time that’s convenient for you) to let you know how things are going, and of course you can contact the consultant whenever you like. It may take several weeks, even several months, for you and your child care provider to make the changes that will lead to improvements in your child’s behavior. The consultant may arrange follow-up meetings to re-work the Positive Child Guidance Plan if it appears that different strategies may be needed.

  1. Referrals to Outside Services as Needed

Sometimes you and the rest of the team will agree that it would be best to refer your child somewhere else for additional evaluation or services. For example, you all may wonder if your child has a speech and language problem and decide to send him or her to a speech and language therapist for an evaluation. The consultant can help you with these referrals – if it turns out your child does need additional help, it’s important to get it as soon as possible.

  1. Conclusion of CCEP Services

When it appears that the goals for your child are being met, the consultant will arrange for another meeting so that the team can decide if it’s time to conclude CCEP services or to keep on going. If it’s time to conclude, the team will make a transition plan to finish up any loose ends. Even after CCEP services are concluded, you can still feel free to contact the consultant if any questions come up.

What Families Say About CCEP

Here’s what other parents have said about their experience with CCEP services:

  • “I am more patient with my son and have more structure in his routine. I also pick battles so as not to be overly negative with him. The emotional support was the best thing about our experience with CCEP. The daycare made me feel like the behavioral problems in school were 100% my fault. The consultant helped me to realize that we all needed to work together to help him.”
  • “The consultant was someone who could observe, be objective and provide positive feedback and suggestions.”
  • “I understand my daughter’s behavior better and realize that some of the things reported to me at her former daycare are just normal for her age.”
  • “If Ms. Jennifer (our CCEP consultant) hadn’t had anything to do with it, I don’t think we would have made it. God bless you, Ms. Jennifer.”
  • “We need more people like our CCEP consultant who has the heart and soul to really help the consumer. She really helped me and my son get the help needed and now he is in school and doing well.”

Frequently Asked Questions about CCEP

  1. Will my child be labeled if he or she gets help from CCEP?

No. CCEP is a prevention program, not a treatment program. CCEP consultants will not label or diagnose your child.

  1. Will I have to pay for CCEP services?

No. CCEP services are free to you and your child care provider.

  1. Will information that I tell the CCEP consultant be shared with others?

The consultant won’t share any information unless you give your permission in writing.

  1. Why does the CCEP consultant want to do a home visit? What is she looking for?

The consultant needs as much information as possible in order to figure out what might be causing a child’s challenging behavior. A young child can’t explain what’s going on, so the consultant must rely on what the parents and child care provider tell her. The consultant also relies on her own observations of how the child interacts with other people. Being able to observe the child at child care and at home can be very helpful. For example, the consultant may find that the parent and the provider are responding very differently to the child’s challenging behaviors. If this is the case, the consultant can help the parent and provider work together to be more consistent in how they respond to the child. However, home visits are optional.

  1. Will my child have a mental health “record” if we use CCEP services?

No. Because CCEP is a prevention service, not a mental health treatment service, the children and families we serve are not officially entered into the mental health system.

  1. Will you plan for my child without including me?

Never. Parents are the most important people on the CCEP team. We look to you to help us learn about and plan for your child. All ideas are generated from shared conversation.

  1. Am I the only parent getting this kind of service?

Absolutely not. There is a huge demand for CCEP services. Over 500 Michigan children received CCEP services last year. Child care providers across the country say that the number of infants, toddlers and preschoolers with challenging behaviors keeps increasing and that they want consultation and training to do a better job of caring for these children.

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2008- Michigan’s Child Care Expulsion Prevention Program