Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Early Intervention Task Force topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Rep. Carson outlines task force to boost early intervention for young children with disabilities
Summary
Representative Melissa Carson introduced legislation to create a time-limited task force to study early identification and interventions for young children with disabilities, seek roughly $250,000 in startup funding, and deliver interim and final reports with implementation recommendations.
Representative Melissa Carson introduced House Bill 5164 on Feb. 6 before the Rhode Island House Committee on Education, proposing a task force to improve early identification and services for children with developmental disabilities.
Carson said the bill is intended to “map out a plan for early intervention” so children are identified and receive services earlier, which she described as both developmentally important and cost-saving. “I really do believe that this is the way that we should be looking at special needs children,” Carson said, describing the first five years of life as “the most formative years” and urging earlier evaluation and services such as speech and occupational therapy.
The bill would create a multi-stakeholder task force with specific reporting responsibilities. Carson told the committee the measure reduces the size of the task force from a prior version, clarifies how it will function, and requires an interim and a final report with recommendations on costs, funding, and implementation. The bill text, Carson said, lays out the task force’s charge across several pages and includes “guardrails” intended to make the plan more viable.
Carson told members she had instructed the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to pursue approximately $250,000 to staff the task force and that the task force would be triggered once funding is secured and the House, Senate and governor are notified. “As soon as they have the money and they let us know, both the senate, the governor and the house, that triggers the task force,” she said.
Representative Fashin raised the possible omission of representation from the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, stressing that “early intervention with deaf children means everything” and urging that expertise from that community be included on the task force. Carson responded that she would consider that suggestion.
Carson and the bill’s supporters framed the proposal as a planning and coordination effort rather than an immediate program expansion or guaranteed line-item expenditure. The bill text, as discussed in committee, calls for identifying barriers, recommending updates to law and regulations, projecting staffing and funding needs, and producing an implementation plan.
No formal committee vote on House Bill 5164 was recorded during the hearing portion in the transcript; Representative Carson’s remarks concluded with committee members’ questions and suggestions.
Carson asked the committee to “take a serious look” at the bill and consider passage this year. The committee proceeded to call other items for hearing later in the session.
Key procedural note: Representative Carson introduced the bill to put it in play; the transcript states a hearing was set for “05/02/1952” (as read aloud during the session). The transcript is the source of that date and the committee did not specify any alternate hearing date in the spoken record.
