A New Organization and a Fresh Perspective!

Tonight was our local meeting for the CDC. I was absolutely amazed by the turnout!!! We were extremely fortunate to have concerned parents as well as important members of the Special Needs Community.

• Frederick County Department of Social Services
• Winchester Child Development Clinic
• Lord Fairfax Health District
• Healthy Families
• Winchester Public Schools
• Lutheran Family Services
• Northern Shenandoah Valley Autism Resource

The community has really come together for a very important goal. Northwestern Community Services www.nwcsb.com has donated space for evaluations to be conducted locally. THANK YOU!!!

We all decided to get officially organized. We have designated ourselves as the Northern Shenandoah Valley Save Our Services organization (NSVSOS). We have a Facebook page up and running (THANKS Sharon Hanks!) at www.facebook.com/nsvsos

I (Jack Starry) was nominated Chairman
Cassie Purtlebaugh is Vice Chairman
Sharon Hanks is Secretary

This is uncharted waters for me... I've always just been a loudmouth. I'm going to have to adhere to a structure, now!

Now... on to the meat of the matter.

What we are working to do is notify all the local service providers in the area about the services being sent to Harrisonburg and have them, en masse, express their genuine concern about the importance of keeping services local. I, along with other concerned parents, will be contacting JMU and inviting them to our meetings. Including them in the process and working closely with them to facilitate the opening of a satellite office here.

Again, the importance is multi faceted. Right now, JMU has about half the monthly caseload scheduled (see my blog titled "Not Half Full, Not Half Empty... Just Half") that the local CDC had. When there is a "no show" (which is WAY MORE probable being as JMU is so far away) JMU isnt able to quickly work another child from our area in. Its a logistical impossibility! That open slot goes to a child close to JMU! So, the children of our area lose out AGAIN. If JMU is going to see children from our area until such time a local office is up and running, they need to continue seeing children at the rate and frequency that the local CDC  had been.

All that being said, our next meeting is Thursday, July 25th at 6PM. We will be meeting at 10 Baker Street (The former CDC offices). We hope to have JMU and The VDH commissioner in attendance (most likely by videoconference). That brings up an interesting point... if the JMU officials were to find it too inconvenient to travel to Winchester for a meeting... it stands to reason why it would be even more difficult for a family with a special needs child to travel down to them... dontcha think?

By the way, NSVAR was on the news tonight about just this very topic! CLICK HERE to see the video!