Photo Provided Easterseals speech-language pathologist Kelli Shallcross leads a speech therapy session with Harvey Henry, 3, in the Wheeling center.

WHEELING — Area residents who drive past Easterseals Rehabilitation Center at 1305 National Road may not realize the life-changing work that occurs inside the low-slung brick building on a daily basis.

“Everyone knows someone with a connection to Easterseals, but sometimes we still need to explain what we do because people aren’t quite sure,” marketing director Betsy Bethel-McFarland said.

Easterseals has been around since 1937 in Wheeling. Its mission is to create life-changing solutions for children with physical and developmental delays and disabilities, providing individualized therapies and services to help children live life to their full potential.

On a micro level, Bethel-McFarland said, that mission could translate to a child with Down syndrome working with an occupational therapist to learn, step-by-step, how to put on his socks, for example.

The mastery of each step in therapy — whether it’s putting on socks or pronouncing a ‘k’ sound at the end of a word, or walking up steps — can take weeks, months or years, and is always a cause for celebration.

Zooming out to the whole community, Bethel-McFarland said, everyone from families to schools to employers benefit when children receive the rehabilitative therapies they need to become the healthiest, strongest and most capable individuals they can be.

Easterseals is a nonprofit charitable organization and couldn’t operate as effectively without the support of the community.

About one-third of Easterseals’ operating budget comes from community donations. Several local businesses support Easterseals through annual fundraisers, such as the Kalkreuth Amateur Golf Championship, National Pizza Party Day and the Miklas Meat Market Soup Sale. The largest fundraiser Easterseals organizes is the Ohio River Splashtacular, featuring a water ski show on the Ohio River, children’s activities and a grand prize raffle at Heritage Port in June.

Because of this community support, Easterseals is able to offer all its services to children regardless of the family’s ability to pay.

One thing that tends to muddy the waters in regard to donations, Bethel-McFarland said, is that Easterseals is one of 70 national Easterseals affiliates; that is, the local Easterseals pays the national Easterseals to use the brand and receive some marketing and technical support, similar to a franchisee.

“Easterseals in Wheeling is independent from the national Easterseals office and other affiliates. That means in order for your donation to help local children, it has to be sent to 1305 National Road in Wheeling. We don’t have a P.O. box,” Bethel-McFarland noted.

“If you’ve been giving to the national Easterseals, it’s never too late to start giving locally,” she added.

SPECTRUM OF SERVICES

Easterseals offers a spectrum of services broken down into three categories: outpatient medical rehabilitation, medical services and autism services. All services begin with a referral to Easterseals from the child’s physician.

Outpatient Medical

Rehabilitation

Outpatient medical rehabilitation at Easterseals includes three types of services:

– Speech therapy – Speech therapists work to improve communication skills of children with a range of delays and disabilities, from those with minor speech delays to those who are nonverbal learning to communicate through a device;

– Occupational therapy – Occupational therapists help children learn daily living skills to the best of their individual abilities, from improving their handwriting to mastering buttons and eating utensils, to manually propelling a wheelchair.

– Physical therapy – Physical therapists lessen pain and strengthen large muscle groups in children who have been impacted by congenital conditions, chronic diseases and other developmental disabilities and delays.

Therapists work with children and their parents or caregivers to set individual goals and evaluate progress with each session, culminating in a review every 90 days. Children reach goals at their own pace. Easterseals therapists work with families to help them continue therapies at home, too, which often leads to improved outcomes.

Medical Services

Easterseals recently has expanded its medical team and overall capacity to directly address the long-term health needs of children with developmental delays, disabilities, and behavioral disorders — and their families — to provide the best possible development outcomes.

Under the leadership of its new medical director, Dr. David Mosman, the Easterseals medical team provides individualized, evidence-based treatment plans for a variety of behavioral and medical disorders, including autism, ADHD, and various development and sensory disorders related to in utero opioid exposure.

Mosman maintains his WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital-based pediatrics practice and sees patients at Easterseals once a week. He is joined at Easterseals by his wife, Amanda Mosman, a physician assistant with a thriving WVU Medicine pediatrics practice in Glen Dale.

“The Mosmans’ unmatched local expertise and commitment to addressing the growing behavioral health needs of children reflect their service-minded approach to health care,” Easterseals President and CEO Eric Filberto said.

In addition to the Mosmans, Easterseals offers on-site appointments with Dr. Jason Edinger, a pediatric medicine and rehabilitation physician, or physiatrist, from UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Edinger specializes in child development, movement, braces, wheelchairs and other assistive mobility equipment. He assesses and treats the whole child and is concerned about the problems that exist now and how to prevent problems that worsen with age.

Autism Services

In response to the community’s needs, Easterseals strives to create better identification of autism through diagnostic evaluations with shorter wait times and closer proximity than many other practices in the region. These evaluations are administered by specially trained occupational therapists and may also involve a multidisciplinary team that includes the social worker, speech-language pathologist, physical therapist, physician and other developmental specialists as needed. Assessments assist in determining a diagnosis along with recommendations of appropriate therapeutic treatment, as indicated by the child’s individual needs.

For more information about Easterseals and its impact on the local community, visit wv.easterseals.com.