This is from the Assistant Commissioner of NYC DOHMH BEI:
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Division of Family and Child Health, Bureau of Early Intervention (BEI) is committed to providing quality services to children and families in the Early Intervention Program.
Part of that commitment is limiting the community spread of COVID-19 while still ensuring that appropriate service plans are put in place for the children and families that we serve.
In order to achieve this goal, starting Monday, March 16, 2020, all New York City Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) meetings will be conducted via conference call. In this way, the Early Intervention Program will reduce travel while continuing to meet its program obligations.
As with all phone based IFSP meetings, the entire team must be present and available for the duration of the meeting. If all of the required IFSP team members are not available by phone, the meeting will need to be re-scheduled.It remains the responsibility of the Ongoing Service Coordinator to obtain and provide contact numbers for all participants as part of the IFSP scheduling process.
The Ongoing Service Coordinator must obtain parent/guardian signatures on the IFSP Consent Form as per NYC P&P 6-A.To ensure the continued timely delivery of services, the parent/guardian’s verbal consent must be documented in the IFSP, with the expectation that the Ongoing Service Coordinator will later obtain the required signatures as per NYC P&P 6-A.For Initial IFSP meetings conducted by phone, BEI will require that the next review be conducted in person (face-to-face).
BEI will be reassessing this policy on a weekly basis to ensure that practice reflects the ongoing developments of COVID-19.