Audio 2.1: Mary Jo Paladino

Ms. Paladino is the mother of six children so she has had the joy of experiencing many transitions. She has worked in early intervention since 1989 in Colorado and Indiana. She is currently consulting with the Indiana State Department of Health and the Indiana University School of Medicine on a Community Integrated Systems of Services grant with a focus on transition and Medical Home (running time: 2 min. 17 sec.).

 

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Mary Jo Paladino:

One of the things I did in preparation for this is to go to send some of the questions out to some of the other family members that I know throughout Indiana just asking them to share their thoughts as well. And one of the things that bubbled to the top in almost everybody’s comments was how important the communication is. And the communication between friendly receiving partners, the team that the family has been working with, clear communication just seems to be the most important piece. Are all the parties communicating the information? One of the examples would be when you’re working with whomever you’re working with and you’re preparing for this next step. What typically happens is new people are involved and the way those people are introduced is key. The personal invitation that happens with the family: “I would like to invite you to meet the teacher at the school” or “the person that’s at Head Start that will likely be the teacher for your child” and then taking the step to have that personal face to face introduction. What it does is demonstrates that the person you’re working with has already networked and knows people in the community and with that introduction it builds the invitation to trust the relationship.