(325 ILCS 21/145-5)

Sec. 145-5. Findings; policies.

(a) The General Assembly finds the following:

(1) Part C of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Early Intervention Services System Act provide that all eligible infants and toddlers and their families are entitled to receive a broad range of developmental, social, and emotional services designed to maximize their development, including speech and language, developmental, occupational, and physical therapies and social work services.

(2) The General Assembly finds that early intervention services as outlined in Part C of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are cost-effective and effectively serve the developmental needs of eligible infants and toddlers and their families.

(3) Early intervention services to young children who have or are at risk for developmental delays have been shown to positively impact outcomes across developmental domains, including language and communication, cognitive development, and social and emotional development.

(4) Families benefit by being able to better meet their child's developmental needs from an early age and throughout their lives.

(5) Benefits to society include reducing the economic burden through a decreased need for special education.

(6) Data shows that early intervention services in Illinois are at least two and a half times less costly annually than special education services in preschool and elementary years.

(7) Nationwide, nearly 70% of children in early intervention programs exhibit growth greater than expected; this includes acquiring skills at a faster rate even after they leave the program.

(8) Nationwide, nearly half of children leave early intervention programs functioning at age level and do not need special education at kindergarten age.

(9) Early intervention services are underutilized in Illinois and nationally with only 4% of Illinois infants and toddlers currently receiving services, while the research shows that about 13% of Illinois children are eligible.

(10) In Illinois and nationally, only approximately 1% of infants are enrolled in early intervention, which is far below the percentage of children who should be receiving these services; this is of concern because intervention at the earliest possible point improves children's outcomes, and children born with low or very low birth weights or otherwise leaving the NICU too often do not receive the needed connection to early intervention services, particularly those children on Medicaid.

(11) Data indicates that early intervention services in Illinois are underutilized in the medical diagnosis and environmental factors with substantial risk of delay categories; these are the 2 eligibility areas in which infants and toddlers are automatically eligible.

(12) Experts conclude that early intervention eligibility needs to be clearly understood and documented so that children and families who meet eligibility requirements can be appropriately referred, served, and supported.

(13) The Early Intervention Services System Act requires the State to provide a comprehensive, coordinated, interagency, and interdisciplinary early intervention services system for eligible infants and toddlers and their families by enhancing the capacity to provide quality early intervention services, expanding and improving existing services, and facilitating coordination of payments for early intervention services from various public and private sources.

(14) Black and Latinx children in Illinois are more likely to be on a waiting list for services. This is due to a number of reasons, including the reluctance to provide services in certain neighborhoods due to the perception of safety issues and in cases in which families experience multiple challenges, such as child welfare involvement or families experiencing homelessness, which are all predictive factors of children that could benefit from early intervention services.

(15) Inequitable access to appropriate early intervention services is disproportionately more likely to be experienced by Black and Latinx families.

(b) The General Assembly encourages the Department of Human Services, in consultation with advocates and experts in the field, including the Interagency Council on Early Intervention, to take all of the following actions:

(1) to re-examine the definition of "at-risk" and also the diagnosed medical conditions that typically result in delay to ensure that they effectively increase eligibility and access to early intervention services;

(2) to charge the Early Intervention Training Program, in collaboration with experts and beneficiaries, to create and execute a plan for designing and disseminating affirmative outreach through multiple modalities to primary referral services as defined by statute, providers, and families;

(3) to include explanations and provide examples in the affirmative outreach plan about how the medical conditions resulting in high probability of developmental delay and at-risk of developmental delay categories do not require the child to have any present delay;

(4) to present to the General Assembly a report that includes the affirmative outreach plan and plans for disseminating that information, including data on the all-children-served eligibility category, services provided, and information on race and geographic area to the General Assembly no later than June 30, 2022;

(5) to develop a plan for the State to launch early intervention specialized teams that can address the complex needs that families face; the General Assembly urges recommendations for the plan to be developed by a public-private early intervention specialized teams work group and to include the participation of at least 2 Child Family Connection Providers in an early intervention specialized team pilot; this plan should build on work by the Illinois Interagency Council on Early Intervention and should specifically address modifications to billing and other policies to support new teaming structure, budget implications for pilot execution, corresponding professional development opportunities for early intervention providers, a prearranged mechanism to collect feedback from both families and providers, a mechanism for tracking outcomes, and ways to refine the approach for scale; the General Assembly urges this plan to be developed and launched by January 1, 2022; and

(6) to work in a public-private partnership to establish demonstration projects with at least 2 hospital neo-natal intensive care departments, in-patient and out-patient, with the goal of better coordination and timely connections to early intervention services; the General Assembly encourages this implementation to be underway no later than January 1, 2022.

(Source: P.A. 101-654, eff. 3-8-21.)