A call to arms from NSV-SOS Co-Chairman Cassie Purtlebaugh!!!
Join us and help us fight for the children of the Northern Shenandoah Valley!!!
Greetings friends and committee members of the NSV-SOS!
As summer has come to an end, and we are all back from our vacations and settling into the school year, it is time to come back together for the sake of our children. As you know, no progress has been made since our last meeting in securing a satellite office in our location for the Child Development Clinic. Additionally, from our understanding, the numbers of children being served in the JMU clinic continue to be less than those who were served in this region, and it already feels like our children are slipping through the cracks.
As a private provider, I have recently, especially, felt the sting associated with losing the CDC in our area. We have many, many children who are enrolled in our Therapeutic Day Treatment programs who are in desperate need of full-scale psychological evaluations. With other local providers also not offering this service funded through Medicaid, we are having to send our kids further and further outside of our own community for services. This is in direct contrast to what we, as a systems of care, want for our children. We need local services that are affordable for those most in need, and, as a committee, I feel like it is our obligation to really start to figure out some answers.
Will we get the collaboration we need from the state level Department of Health in order to offer these services in a manner that is accessible for our children and families? Maybe not….but, we are a strong group of professionals with lots of ideas who can certainly problem-solve and work with agencies here in our own community to offer this type of care. I’m not giving up the fight for the CDC to be local….but, in the meantime, while contracts are or are not being negotiated on the state level, we have to do something to prevent our kids from continuously falling through the cracks, and to assist their parents and guardians in securing the help they need to move forward with assessment, recommendations, and treatment in our own community.
I propose a meeting to come back together on these topics on October 21, 2013, 6-8pm, hosted at Lutheran Family Services of Virginia. Will you help us be a part of the solution? Please let me know if you are able to attend. Thanks so much, and we look forward to seeing you again!
Cassie Phipps Purtlebaugh, M.A.
Director of Community Based Services
Lutheran Family Services of Virginia
225 East Pall Mall Street
Winchester, Virginia 22601
Phone: 540-450-2782
Fax: 540-450-2783
www.lfsva.org
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