There’s Always More We Can Do

He bounces around the treatment room like any two-year-old boy in blue jeans. He’s fascinated by a pinball game. He loves a set of colored cards. He smiles. He claps his hands.

But when therapist Mae Carlson asks the boy to repeat simple sounds after her, the plot changes abruptly.
“Boo,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, brightly.
“Bee,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, a little less brightly.
“Bye,” says Mae.

The boy says nothing. His brain won’t let him.
He has been diagnosed with autism, and he can’t always coordinate his muscles, lips and tongue to mimic or produce sounds.

As recently as two decades ago, this boy might have been institutionalized. But on a warm Wednesday morning in March, he is being treated at one of the Washington area’s largest and most successful non-profit hearing and speech clinics, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing.

BRSH is located in an office park in Lansdowne, Virginia, about 20 miles northwest of Dulles International Airport. It has served the burgeoning population of Loudoun County since 1964.

In the fiscal year that ended last June 30, BRSH provided audiology, speech and occupational therapy services to 1,172 people. The agency also conducts screenings in Loudoun County pre-schools once a week to identify children at risk.

“We see a lot of kids with special needs, kids on the autism spectrum,” said Kristi Stilen-Lare, the president and CEO. The agency also operates loaner banks for hearing equipment. It prides itself on providing services to people and families who can’t pay.

BRSH is a longtime partner of United Way of the National Capital Area. United Way donations support the agency’s everyone-gets-served policy. BRSH received $3,864.49 in United Way support in the last fiscal year.

“A lot of working families can’t afford our services,” said Stilen-Lare. “Or insurance plans put caps on how many visits someone can have. United Way funds give us the flexibility” to treat patients who wouldn’t otherwise be treated, she said.

At BRSH, miracles seldom happen. But slow and steady progress often does.One patient, an 18-year-old boy who suffered a traumatic brain injury, has been in treatment at BRSH for more than six years. As recently as four months ago, he couldn’t dress himself. But recently, he came within a whisker of being able to put on his own pants. “It’s real progress,” said his therapist, Kristin Palen.

Another patient, a three-year-old boy, couldn’t respond to questions or commands unless they were sung. He suffers from a condition called apraxia, an inability to process verbal commands.

But after nearly a year of therapy with pathologist Trinity E. Costic, the boy “can express himself in multiple sentences” and “he doesn’t need music all the time” to understand and obey commands, Costic said.

“Literally, from week to week, you’re seeing progress,” Costic said.
If BRSH had more support from United Way? Stilen-Lare said she’d convert part-time positions to full-time and do more pre-school screening.

“There’s always more we can do,” she said.

Another Cat Has Become More Like a Lion...

Emily Breines, the teacher, has projected a slide onto the wall of a classroom in the downtown YWCA. It’s easy to see a cat in the foreground. The cat is looking in a mirror.
But what’s being reflected back?

Edwin Andrade, one of the students, raises his hand.
“A lion,” he says. And he smiles a smile of recognition.

Turning cats into lions is, in a nutshell, what a program called Beyond Talent tries to accomplish. It works with young Washingtonians—typically between 18 and 30—to help them hone their skills and self-confidence so they are ready for college. It is in the backbone construction and reconstruction business.

The program is in its seventh year. It has taught about 350 students in that time, about 100of them in 2009.

Most of the students left traditional high schools at some point. Some have gotten GED diplomas, but many have not. All are united in their desire to learn more in two-year or four-year colleges, so they can earn more. But many—if not most—lack the belief that they can achieve very much in the academic arena.

Edwin Andrade, 19, is an excellent example. He dropped out of Northwestern High School in Hyattsville three years ago.

“I didn’t like it,” he said. “It just wasn’t fun. For a while, I didn’t do nothing. I was in the streets and stuff.”

A succession of low-paying, no-future jobs followed. His current one pays him $8 an hour to clean office buildings.

“I want to go to college,” Andrade said. “Then I want to get into business. I’ve always wanted to do that.” Beyond Talent is “doing good” at helping him get there.
Ellie Phillips, the founder and executive director of Beyond Talent, said that “no other organization is really focusing on this population. Very often, they don’t think beyond the immediacy of get a paycheck, get through the day.” That’s why Beyond Talent drills them not just on academic fundamentals, but on attitudes—self-confidence, self-awareness, assertiveness, alertness.

About five percent of Beyond Talent’s $75,000 annual budget comes from donors to United Way of the National Capital Area. Ellie Phillips is very enthusiastic about the partnership because it didn’t exist before 2009.

“New sources of funds are what we always need, and United Way is one of those sources,” she said. At the front of the room, Emily Breines has projected a new slide. The word “self-confidence” is right in the center.

“If you’re self-confident, what does it mean?” she asks. Edwin Andrade raises his hand.
“It means you take more chances on stuff. Like those reasonable risks we were talking about,” he says.

Emily Breines smiles and nods. Yet another cat has become more like a lion.