Designed to help state administrators acquaint local educators and parents to the importance of short- and long-term planning for young handicapped children, the paper examines issues for local planning teams. An introductory section provides an overview of the challenge of working with young handicapped children. Five interactive planning activities are examined (sample subtopics in parentheses): (1) obtaining authorization; (2) using a planning team (coordinator's major tasks); (3) conducting a needs assessment (community, state, cultural, and national influences); (4) formulating philosophy and goals (early childhood, special education and related areas, multicultural education); and (5) delineating the intervention service (child services, family involvement, staffing, inservice education, community awareness and liasion, evaluation, financial and business affairs, and administration, management, and coordination). A reference list is included. (CL)