The Child Guidance program utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to provide prevention, diagnostics treatment and education services to children and families throughout Tulsa County. Our staff, which includes Audiologists, Behavioral Health Specialists, Child Development Specialists and Speech and Language Pathologists, are graduate-level clinicians with specialized training in their field of study.
The Child Guidance program contributes to THD’s mission by providing prevention and intervention services that promote a healthy developmental trajectory and mitigate the impact of trauma. In providing evidence-based, trauma-informed services, the Child Guidance program promotes healthy, nurturing relationships that serve to buffer young children from the impact of ACE’s, and their effect on long-term health.
During the COVID-19 response efforts, the Child Guidance and Audiology programs were extremely committed maintaining client services while still being heavily involved in the COVID-19 response activities.
The Child Guidance program was the first program within the Tulsa Health Department to establish and offer telehealth services.
As a team, we explored innovative ways to stay connected to the clients established through weekly clinical services. The Child Guidance program was the first program within the Tulsa Health Department to establish and offer telehealth services. While shifting to these online services, we also created weekly mailings to all our clientele. These mailings included crucial information on how caregivers could support their children during COVID-19, activities that they could do together at home – from crafts to basic treatment strategies that could be maintained during their break in treatment - and helpful information on how to incorporate mindfulness and relaxation strategies with the children.
Our staff demonstrated the dedication to maintain services to our most vulnerable clients. While working, oftentimes daily, in the COVID-19 response, our staff showed great flexibility by covering one another’s response activities, thus allowing clinicians to meet with clients as much as possible. Telehealth services were often scheduled before and after response activities, days off the response calendar and outside typical business hours. There were times when our Audiologist would even meet with families in the parking lot to ensure that the clients would be able to have serviceable hearing aids during this break in clinical services. By putting the community needs first, these families did not have to choose to go elsewhere during this time of disrupted services. As a result, we were able to maintain them in services, when other community agencies were not able to see them.
We have one particular client, a young boy who was receiving services with his caregiver, that has been impacted by every one of our disciplines that are offered through Child Guidance and Audiology.
Initially, this young boy came to our program when his caregiver was seeking a developmental assessment with Kim Whitty, a Child Development Specialist. During this assessment, this client was identified as having some speech concerns and was quickly enrolled in receiving speech serviced with Shannon Culler, a Speech-Language Pathologist. As Shannon became more familiar with this client’s history and treatment needs, he and his caregiver were referred to Kelley Florence, a Behavioral Health clinician, for Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. As Kelley began to work with this family, it became evident that the caregiver was having difficulty in hearing Kelley, as she tried to utilize our FM system to communicate with the caregiver. Kelley consulted with Dr. Stacy Lackey, an Audiologist, who was able to assist the caregiver with programming her hearing aids and loan the caregiver a hearing aid that interfaced much better with the FM system being utilized in the clinic.
This client has been able to successfully transition into the school setting and participate in a meaningful way that allows him to learn and socialize with his peers.
Kelley has also worked diligently to establish a collaborative relationship with the child’s school and has provided psychoeducation, trauma training and information on how the PRIDE skills of the PCIT model can best be applied in the school setting. As a result, this client has been able to successfully transition into the school setting and participate in a meaningful way that allows him to learn and socialize with his peers.
By the Numbers
- 1,873 client contacts in the clinics
- 263 group hours
- 68 classroom consultation hours