Early Intervention: Information for Providers

The NYC Early Intervention Program is committed to ensuring that children and families receive high-quality services. The program provides technical assistance and program monitoring to ensure that providers adhere to all laws, policies and procedures.

The program also provides support in the use of family-centered best practices for delivery of Early Intervention services to children and families.

Resources

Improving Transition for Families Between the Health Department and the NYC Department of Education

Document Transfer System (DTS)

In partnership with Health Department, the Department of Education introduced the Document Transfer System in summer 2020. It is a secure, web-based system that allows Early Intervention service coordinators to upload and transmit transition documents electronically to the Department of Education. The system eliminates the need for paper faxes and a fax machine.

The Document Transfer System makes the transition from Early Intervention to the Committee on Preschool Special Education more fluid. It provides child and family information to the Department of Education in a way that better facilitates the agency's outreach to families. By securely transferring documents digitally, this system also minimizes the loss of information and increases accountability between agencies.

Beginning August 3, 2020, all service coordinators will exclusively use the Document Transfer System to submit transition documents to the Department of Education.

For questions about the information in these resources, email preschoolSPEDsystemshelp@schools.nyc.gov.

Helping Families — Moving to Preschool

The Department of Education’s preschool special education services can support children ages three to five with disabilities or delays in development. These services are provided free of charge to families. Preschool services can help support a child’s learning, speech and language, physical development, social-emotional skills, and other areas.

EI Transition Team

Helpline: 646-389-7171

Email: EItoPreschool@schools.nyc.gov

The Transition from the Early Intervention Program: Supporting Families (Five Contact Hours) is a training created to provide background, information and tools needed to effectively support families through the transition process from the early intervention program

How to Become a Provider of Early Intervention Services

To provide Early Intervention services in New York City, you must have a Provider Agreement with the NYS Department of Health to provide service coordination, evaluation or services. You may provide Early Intervention services in a family’s home or community, or in a facility, as approved by the State.

For information on how agencies and individuals can get a Provider Agreement, email bei@health.state.ny.us.

After you receive an Appendix Provider Agreement from the State, email EITA@health.nyc.gov for information on how to get started providing services in NYC.

Child Care Programs

Child care providers should make referrals by calling 311 and asking for Early Intervention, or by filling out the Early Intervention Program Referral Form (PDF) and faxing it to the citywide Early Intervention Referral Unit at 347-396-8801.

The Health Department's Early Help Matters: Linking Infants and Toddlers in Child Care to Early Intervention (PDF) toolkit provides up-to-date information on Early Intervention referrals and services in child care settings.

Health Care Providers

Health care providers should make referrals by calling 311 and asking for Early Intervention, or by filling out the Early Intervention Program Referral Form (PDF) and faxing it to the citywide Early Intervention Referral Unit at 347-396-8801. The Health Department's Early Help Matters: Supporting Family Access to the New York City Early Intervention Program toolkit provides information to help providers connect patients to Early Intervention.

Employees of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), or agencies contracted with ACS, must call the Citywide ACS Referral Hotline at 877-885-KIDZ (877-885-5439) to make a referral to the Early Intervention Program.

More Information