What Is a Care Notebook ???

Care Notebooks (definition): Care notebooks are an approach being used in several other states to help families (especially those raising a child with special needs) keep their medical and service plan information organized and available to service providers.

A care notebook is simply a 3 ring binder that:

• Helps parents/caregivers maintain an ongoing, organized record of their child’s care, services, providers, & notes.

• Empowers parents/caregivers to become more knowledgeable about their child’s care.
• Maintains open lines of communication across multiple providers. Ensuring that any family accessing professional services could quickly and effectively provide a new provider with their basic information and history as well as current services being provided by others. This should ensure that the overall treatment plan for the child is coordinated and comprehensive and that services are not duplicated.

Professionals can encourage the use of care notebooks by providing them to families after an initial visit; asking families to bring the notebook to each follow up appointment, and helping families keep them current by assisting with forms or providing copies of records, forms, or provider notes to add to the notebook. A care notebook can be divided into the different services and program that a child uses: medical, educational, developmental, psychological, financial, durable equipment, and others as needed.

To put a care notebook together you will need: ·

A 3-ring binder, expandable pressboard folder, or large accordion envelope. · Tabbed dividers to create the needed information sections. · Pocket dividers to store reports. · Plastic pages to store photographs and business cards. Helpful hints for families: · Store the notebook where it is easy to find. · Add new information whenever the child’s treatment plan, IEP or other service plan changes. · Take the notebook with you to medical and school appointments and hospital visits. · Ask your physician, school, and other providers to give you copies of important information for your child’s care notebook. · Use calendar pages to keep track of appointments. · Use note/question pages to remind you of your questions for the doctor, school, and other providers.

Specific issues that Care Notebooks could address

1. Most families with a special needs child receive services from multiple providers/organizations. And these various providers aren't always in communication with each other or provided with timely updates via the parent. A Care Notebook could assist with cross provider communication.

2. Most of these agencies require an intake process of basic identifying information and medical history that parents find frustrating to provide (either because they grow tired of repeating the same information multiple times or because they can't find or can't remember critical pieces of information). A Care Notebook could include all of this critical information so that the necessary details could either be Xeroxed by the new provider or copied by the parent quickly and easily from one portable source.


I have a few supplies left and would be happy to provide them to someone if they are interested. Please contact me @ p2psupport@gmail.com