The building block, 04-06/2012, v.6 no.2

              An e-newsletter of the J. D. McCarty Center for children with developmental disabilities
Volume VI, Issue 2
April - June
2012
McCarty Center offers free mobile screening
program to reach more families
The McCarty Center has
started a new program to reach
more families in Oklahoma. In-stead
of families traveling to Nor-man
for a screening, the hospital
will come to them.
The hospital’s new mobile
screening program will give fami-lies
an opportunity to meet with
a screening team to determine
if their child with special needs
qualifi es for inpatient evaluation
and rehabilitative services at the
hospital, which specializes in the
care and treatment of children
with developmental disabilities.
The screenings are free.
Typically, a family must
travel to Norman for a screen-ing.
Now, the mobile program will
bring that service to them, along
with information about the hospi-tal’s
other services. The program
kicked off April 21 in Holdenville.
“We want to create op-portunities
for more of Okla-homa’s
children with special
needs to be reached and
served by the staff of the Mc-
Carty Center,” said Vicki Kue-stersteffen,
director and CEO. The mobile screening team making the trip to Holdenville were (l-r) social worker Darcie Miller, Juliann Mann,
RN, and psychological clinician Saundra Myers-Johnson.
Kuestersteffen said the goal
with the pilot program is to reach
out to families who live in counties
that are underserved by the hospi-tal.
Last year, the McCarty Center
provided services to children from
57 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
“We’re trying to eliminate that
distance barrier by going to them,”
she said. “We’re bringing our staff
and their expertise to them.”
The screening team mem-bers
who traveled to Holdenville
were Darcie Miller, a social worker;
Juliann Mann, a registered nurse;
and Saundra Myers-Johnson, a
psychological clinician and pro-gram
coordinator.
The team met with two
children, and the screenings in-volved
interviews with the fami-lies
about the child’s medical,
social and behavioral history. The
team also shared information
about the hospital’s comprehen-sive
inpatient evaluations,
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