SoonerStart State Systemic Improvement Plan
The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Program requires all IDEA Part C programs to develop and implement a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) as part of their State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR). The SSIP is a multi-year plan designed to improve developmental outcomes for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families.
Oklahoma is committed to developing and implementing our SSIP with sustainable policies and practices at the state and local levels to impact child outcomes positively.
Oklahoma's SSIP Focus:
Social-Emotional Development
SoonerStart engaged stakeholders to analyze program data and infrastructure components throughout the SSIP development process to ensure high-quality planning, implementation, and evaluation of SSIP efforts. Improving social-emotional outcomes for children with disabilities was selected as the focus for Oklahoma's FFY 2020-FFY 2025 SSIP.
Positive social and emotional development in a child's early years provides a critical foundation for lifelong development and learning. Social development refers to a child's ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships with adults and other children. Emotional development is a child's ability to express, recognize, and manage their emotions and respond appropriately to others' emotions.
State-identified Measurable Result (SiMR)
Oklahoma SoonerStart will increase the percentage of infants and toddlers who demonstrate positive social-emotional skills.
How SoonerStart Plans to Improve Social-Emotional Outcomes for Children
SoonerStart State Systemic Improvement Plan
Theory of Change (2022)
If SoonerStart...
Oklahoma has selected the Pyramid Model as the structured approach for the provision of evidence-based practices leading to improved social-emotional outcomes for infants and toddlers.
The Pyramid Model is a social-emotional learning framework that promotes young children's healthy development and prevents challenging behaviors. The Pyramid Model focuses on building adults' skills to support children's social-emotional health and addresses how to identify and provide for children who may need individual support. The Pyramid Model tiered framework provides caregivers, professionals, and systems to assess, align and implement evidence-based practices and strategies that support children socially and emotionally.
SSIP Partners
The SoonerStart State Leadership Team
Responsible for coordinating SSIP activities, supporting infrastructure to scale up and sustain activities for statewide implementation of evidence-based practices, aligning professional development to support implementation, engaging stakeholders, and assisting and overseeing local SoonerStart Sites.
Local Leadership Teams
Responsible for ensuring staff and providers are trained and implementing evidence-based practices to directly impact children's social-emotional development, developing and sustaining a coaching infrastructure for full scale-up within the local service area. Implementation sites will be added incrementally until all 27 local sites have applied the policies and practices.
Early Intervention Staff
Participate in training workshops, coaching sessions, and regular meetings to enhance skills. Providers will participate in periodic skills checks and ongoing coaching support to ensure practices carry out with fidelity. The Pyramid Model represents the new statewide standard for service delivery for all SoonerStart providers.
Subject Matter Experts
The Pyramid Model Consortium provides planning and design, Program Coaching, Practice-based Coaching, behavior specialist training, and data consultation to support evidence-based practices statewide.
SSIP Stakeholders
Stakeholders at all levels will engage to help carry out SSIP activities to achieve the desired outcomes.
