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Source: An
Agency Representative's Guide to Participating on Local Interagency
Coordinating Councils, First Edition, July 1999
What are Local Interagency Coordinating
Councils?
Local
Interagency Coordinating Councils (LICCs) are local planning and advisory
bodies for the Early On system, established through the sixty-four
local service areas in Michigan. They are made up of family members
who have children with special needs and of representatives from
Education, Community Health, Family Independence Agency (FIA) and other
organizations that provide services to infants and toddlers with
disabilities and their families. Based on the belief that families
and agencies know their community best, Michigan's system was designed to
give local councils (LICCs) the role of developing, implementing and
evaluating their community's early intervention system.
Family and
professional partnerships are at the center of an effective early
intervention system. Family representatives bring their knowledge of
the strengths and needs of the child and family unit.
Representatives from organizations and agencies provide important
information about organizational resources. Both family and agency
representatives are essential to a successful LICC.
The system's
vision for LICCs was to create a structure where families and agencies
from a community would work together to share expertise and resources in
order to provide the best and most effective early intervention system for
their community. As a representative of your agency, the commitment
and resources you bring to the LICC are central to accomplishing that
vision.
What does an LICC do?
Each LICC works
with a locally-based Early On Coordinator to develop and implement
a comprehensive, coordinated, multi-disciplinary interagency system of
early intervention services for eligible infants and toddlers and their
families. Members plan, implement and evaluate the appropriate use
of additional resources and recommend, develop and secure those resources
needed to fill gaps in existing services. The LICC provides an
organizational framework within which the independent but similar
functions of various agencies are structured. The intent is to
eliminate fragmentation and duplication of services, allow for more
effective utilization of personnel and resources, and ensure the provision
of a full array of services within the community.
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