Overview of Young Children's Participation Environmental Measure (YC-PEM)

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The YC-PEM asks about the parents’ perspective of how often their child participates, how involved their child is, and whether or not they desire change.  The areas where they desire change are the areas that would be identified for goal setting.  Those would guide the follow-up interview to construct an intervention plan that is participation focused. 

For each setting, the home and the community, the parent is also asked about a set of environmental factors that potentially can support and/or hinder participation.  Any time a parent desires change, there is a prompt that comes up on the online version that asks parents about strategies they have tried.  That type of information helps a practitioner like you take the results of an assessment and identify:

• Areas where this family desires change – specific activities;
• What are the environmental factors that are supporting or restricting participation?  We may be able to leverage the supports and find a way to minimize barriers;
• What have the parents tried? Let’s leverage their expertise to an active family-centered approach to service planning;
• What kinds of strategies work?  What kinds of strategies worked for a similar type of activity that we could adopt for this activity where they desire change, and which ones do they want to learn more about?

This type of assessment combining participation and environment, for both research and practice purposes, enables you to see specific patterns between or across settings, such as the home and community, but also within a setting.