*2.5. Why International Implementers Were Interested*

International implementers were interested, first, because the model provides actual practices for implementing a family-centered approach. As professionals around the world began to hear and think about family-centered practices, they were intrigued and motivated [18,19]. However, they needed to know what to do. The perspectives and experiences reported here come from the reports of key informants—the leaders and implementers in these different countries: they are represented in the authors. For example, Portuguese early interventionists had difficulty implementing family-centered practices; they could not figure out how to implement these practices with the families they were working with. The RBM provided concrete professional practices in assessment, intervention planning, making decisions about services, and providing services in a family-centered way. Taiwanese experts were interested in the implementation stages of the RBM, which provided a guide and tools for early interventionists to follow. In Paraguay, they were interested in identifying families' informal and formal supports, their concerns about their child's functioning, and how to build the family's capacity to improve child functioning.

In New Zealand, similarly, the Ministry of Education wanted practical tools and a step-by-step process to implement family-centered principles. In particular, in New Zealand, the Ministry's early intervention leaders wanted a way to strengthen how they worked with their indigenous Maori people ¯ to fulfill their Treaty of Waitangi obligations: to promote partnership, protection, and participation and *Tino Rangatiratanga*—Maori control over M ¯ aori a ¯ ffairs. They also wanted to reduce reliance on professionals, to target support at families' day-to-day needs, to ensure everyone was clear that it is *between* visits that the intervention occurs, and to motivate adults around the child with useful intervention plans, rather than having plans sitting in filing cabinets not being implemented.

Experts in Spain saw the need for a different approach when, in 15 *comunidades autónomas*, an average of 75% of the visit (range = 51–95%) was reported to be in direct service to the child [20,21]. Spanish implementers said the model gave methods to put into everyday practice each of the DEC recommended practices [21]. This is noteworthy, because the RBM was developed before these recommended practices were chosen but perhaps it provides some informal validation for the model.

Second, as the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) hones its methods for using subsets of the ICF for Youth and Children (ICF-CY), the RBM has proceeded to develop functional profiles [22–24]. In the *Measure of Engagement, Independence and Social Relationships Manual*, the alignment of ICF-CY and the Measure of Engagement, Independence, and Social Relationships (MEISR) is presented [25]. Implementers have found that the model has resulted in more professional attention to the child's engagement, independence, and social relationships within routines—our definition of functioning. Polish implementers were attracted by the practice of following the child's lead (i.e., incidental teaching) and the precision of the zone defense schedule, in terms of every adult in the classroom having a role at every time of day [26]. For Singaporeans, one appeal of the RBM was to move services towards a more social-inclusion approach to early intervention service delivery. Five of the 10 early childhood intervention service providers in Singapore are using selected components of the RBM. One agency has developed an implementation plan for the whole model, and another is embarking on training RBI coaches with a view to their training the staff in the RBI.

Third, many of our tools are available in languages other than English. The most common translations are into Spanish, Portuguese, traditional Chinese, and Polish. Other languages for some tools are Arabic and Slovene. Professionals have found the translations of *Routines-Based Early Intervention* [9] (Chinese, Portuguese, Korean), *Engagement of Every Child in the Preschool Classroom* [12] (Chinese), and *Working With Families of Young Children With Disabilities* [27] (Portuguese, Korean) particularly helpful.
