Parents as Professionals in Early Intervention A Parent Educator Model

One of the goals of a family-centered approach in early intervention is to equally involve family members as active partners with professionals. This article describes one state's model of family involvement using parents of young children with disabilities as parent educators in the Part C system. Qualitative focus group data were collected with the parent educators over 6 time periods and revealed their changing perceptions about their roles as parent educators, as well as their perceived challenges and successes. Parent educators ultimately came to see themselves as “professionals” working to bring a family perspective to the early intervention system.