Natural Environments

Key Principles and Beliefs

• Early intervention should be a family-centered process that ensures young children with disabilities and their families receive early intervention services and supports as part of their daily routines and activities.
  
  
• A child’s parents and other family members are usually the primary individuals supporting and nurturing the child’s growth, development and learning.  New skills are best learned from the adults and children involved in the child’s daily life.  It’s about helping children develop and practice skills in setting where they live, learn, and play throughout the day.
  
  
• Children and families participate in a variety of community activities that are natural for them including those that occur in their home.  If the family does not want services in their home, other community settings are identified where the child’s needs can be addressed.
  
  
• Family supports are individualized and based upon each family’s daily activities and routines as well as their strengths, resources, and needs.
  
  
• Settings that are not “natural settings” included clinics, hospitals, therapists’ offices, rehabilitation centers, and segregated group settings.  This includes any settings designed to serve children based on categories or disabilities or selected for the convenience of service providers.
  
  
• The IFSP team collectively makes the decision about where the services within the daily activities and routines of the child and family are provided.  No individual member of the team may unilaterally determine the setting for service delivery.  The preferences of one team member cannot be considered acceptable justification for not providing services in natural settings.  Every effort is made to select a setting that the entire IFSP team agrees upon, including the parent supports.
  
  
• Justification for providing services in a setting outside of a natural environment is required.  This includes sufficient documentation to support the IFSP team’s decision that the child’s outcome(s) could not be met in natural settings even with supplementary supports.  This justification includes how the services provided in a specialized setting will be generalized into the child’s daily activities and routines.  It also includes a plan with timelines and the supports necessary to return to early intervention within daily activities and routines, as soon as possible.