How to Prepare for an ISSP Meeting in Newfoundland

An ISSP meeting is different from an IEP meeting in a way that matters for how you prepare. An IEP involves your child's school team. An ISSP involves the school team plus health, social development, and community agencies — potentially six to ten people from different organizations, each with different roles, different timelines, and different accountability structures.

Walking in unprepared means important decisions get made without your full voice. Here's how to prepare so you can participate as an equal partner.

Understand What the ISSP Is (and Isn't)

The Individualized Support Services Plan is a multi-agency document. Unlike an IEP, which is owned and implemented by the school, the ISSP represents commitments from multiple departments: the Department of Education (through the school), the Department of Health and Community Services (through Eastern Health or another regional health authority), and potentially the Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development.

The ISSP is supposed to coordinate these services into a coherent plan for your child. In practice, it often documents what each agency intends to provide without always coordinating those services in real time.

The ISSP is not a replacement for the IEP — the two can coexist. The IEP governs your child's academic program at school. The ISSP wraps around it to address the full range of your child's developmental and support needs.

Know Who Will Be in the Room

Before the meeting, ask for a list of everyone who will attend and their roles. This matters because:

• You'll need to know who is responsible for each service
• You can research each agency's role in advance
• You'll know who to follow up with after the meeting if a service isn't delivered

Typical ISSP team members may include:

• IRT (Instructional Resource Teacher) — the school's special education lead, usually the meeting coordinator
• Classroom teacher(s) — responsible for classroom-level implementation
• School administrator — the principal or vice-principal, representing the school's resources
• SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) — from Eastern Health or the relevant regional health authority
• OT (Occupational Therapist) — if OT services are part of the plan
• Psychologist or developmental pediatrician's representative — less common, but possible if complex clinical needs exist
• Social worker or child welfare worker — if social development is involved
• Community agency representative — Vera Perlin Society, Inclusion NL, ASNL, LDANL
• Service Coordinator — if one has been assigned under NL's Model of Coordination of Services
• You and your child — full members of the team

If health or agency representatives can't attend in person, ask whether they can join by phone or videoconference, or send written input to be discussed at the meeting.

Gather Your Documents Before the Meeting

Request all relevant documentation at least one week before the meeting:

• Current IEP (if one exists)
• Any previous ISSP
• Assessment reports being referenced (psychoeducational, speech-language, OT, medical)
• Progress notes from any current service providers
• School records including recent report cards and teacher observations

If you have your own documentation — a private assessment, your own written observations, medical reports from your child's physician — bring copies for everyone at the table.

Prepare Your Own Written Summary

Write a one-to-two-page summary to bring to the meeting. Include:

What's working. Be specific — what supports are genuinely helping and should continue?

What isn't working. What gaps exist between what the current plan says and what's actually happening? What needs are still unmet?

Your priorities. If you could add or change three things about your child's support plan, what would they be?

Your observations from home. Schools see your child for a few hours a day. You see the full picture. Patterns at home — sleep, emotional regulation, communication, daily living skills — are relevant to the ISSP and often not visible to school staff.

Specific services you believe are needed. If you've been researching and you believe your child needs a specific service (e.g., augmentative communication assessment, behavioral intervention, respite care), name it explicitly. The ISSP team may not raise it unless you do.

Questions to Bring to the Meeting

Write these down and have them in front of you:

• Who is the identified Service Coordinator for my child's ISSP?
• For each service listed in the ISSP: who is the responsible agency, who is the contact person, and what is the expected start date?
• Which services on the current plan have been delivered as committed? Which haven't, and why?
• What are the measurable goals for this ISSP period? How will progress be tracked, and who is tracking it?
• When is the next formal review, and what triggers an earlier review?
• If my child turns 15 / transitions to a new school / reaches a milestone — what happens to the ISSP?

At the Meeting

Take notes. Record who said what, especially any service commitments with timelines. If you can bring a support person — a trusted friend, advocate, or family member — do so. Having another set of ears and eyes in the room is genuinely useful when you're processing multiple people's input in real time.

If you disagree with anything, say it clearly and ask for it to be documented: "I want to note that I don't agree with this recommendation, and I'd like that recorded in the meeting minutes."

If the meeting moves too fast — if documents are being presented and signed in the meeting for the first time — you're allowed to slow down. "I'd like to take this home and review it before signing" is a complete sentence.

After the Meeting

Within a few days:

• Send a follow-up email summarizing your understanding of what was committed, by whom, and on what timeline
• Request signed copies of any documents that were finalized
• Set calendar reminders for each commitment's expected start date

If a service doesn't start as committed, follow up in writing — to the responsible person at the relevant agency, with the Service Coordinator cc'd if one exists.

The ISSP is only as useful as the implementation behind it. Your job after the meeting is to hold each party accountable for their specific piece of the plan.

The NL IEP & Support Plan Blueprint includes ISSP preparation worksheets, a service tracking template, and escalation letters for when ISSP commitments go unfulfilled.

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