A statewide program that provides therapeutic and support services for infants and toddlers with development disabilities is struggling to keep up.
Advocates for those early intervention services say children are spending months or longer on waitlists and that's an indication of systemic problems, including workforce shortages.
A pending study facilitated by The Children’s Agenda could outline a path forward.
Brigit Hurley, chief program officer at the nonprofit, said while last year’s state budget increased the reimbursement rate for providers by 5%, it wasn’t until recently that change took effect.
“That's sort of sprinkles on dry ground for the providers who have been waiting for more reimbursement,” Hurley said.
Early intervention services have not seen a significant funding increase in about 30 years. Hurley said that deters people from entering, or staying in, the early intervention workforce because the pay is too low and doesn’t account for the cost of living.
And that, in turn, creates longer wait times for children who need the services. The study will explore how to fix that, Hurley said. It's expected to be released next year.
“We need an independent look at New York's early intervention system by experts who are aware of how early intervention works, and again, how it might work better compared to that, you know, based on what other states are doing,” Hurley said.
According to a report released last month by The Children's Agenda, about 20% of children did not receive on-time Early Intervention services across the state.
And while there is an increase in licensed speech and language therapists in Monroe County, for instance, the number of them working in early intervention dropped by 25% between 2019 and 2024, according to the same study.
Tina Carney was seeking services for her daughter around 2018, and the child had to wait six months before she was seen.
“There's a specific lack of speech language providers for the 0-3 age early intervention audience,” she said.
Carney, a parent advocate and member of the Monroe County Early Intervention Coordinating Council, said her daughter was also able to receive prekindergarten special education.
“She's a rising fourth grader (now),” she said. “We've been working on self-advocacy lately, and a lot of this is, I think, in credit to the amazing providers that she did get eventually through early intervention and preschool special education as well.”
Carney said the state of early intervention has been a long-standing crisis that needs to be addressed so that children with disabilities can build necessary skills before grade school and succeed into adulthood.
