Center Devoted to Needs of Children Will Open its Doors on Thursday

              Center Devoted to Needs
Of Children Will Open
Its Doors on Thursday
By GEORGE SYLVIE
Assistant City Editor
Now there is a center for children.
Servicing North Louisiana, the
Children's Center will formally open its
doors Thursday at 3730 Blair under the
direction of the LSU Medical Center's
School of Allied Health Professions.
But the center hopes to be more than
a building. According to center Pro-gram
Director Clydie Mitchell, the
center will be a four-pronged ap-proached
to helping the more "com-plicated
cases" of handicapped
children.
Youngsters will be referred to the
center by their parish school systems,
family doctors or their parents, she
said, adding that most referrals will
probably come from school systems —
especially smaller, rural systems that
.do not have the advanced services
available to Caddo and Bossier stu-dents.
Once at the center, the first "prong"
begins with a comprehensive evaluation
much like those provided for special
education students. But the CC's evalua-tion
will also consist of any additional
needed testing — at no cost — at the
Medical Center, Mrs. Mitchell said.
"We walk them over there," she said
of the short jaunt from the center to the
Medical Center. She added that the
center's 10-person professional staff
will also provide technical assistance to
parish school systems once the evalua-tion
is completed and a child is placed in
the proper surroundings.
Also, she said the CC will service
children who before didn't have
anywhere to go for further
medical/educational attention. "The
reason for establishing it (the CC) here
is because the Medical Center is here,"
she said.
In addition, the CC also has a parent
training program, Mrs. Mitchell said.
The program will serve parents in Cad-do,
Bossier, Webster, Claiborne, DeSoto,
Lincoln, Red River and Sabine parishes,
she added.
Parent trainers will go to each local
school system and determine what that
system's needs are, she said, adding that
a center or home-based parent training
program is then developed and parents
will be allowed to use the center's
resource room, which contains educa-tional
and practical materials for
parents to use in helping their children.
Speaking of help, the center also will
provide a professional training pro-gram
that will train students and
personnel in the LSU Med Center's
schools of medicine and allied health
professions in the areas of servicing
handicapped children.
All ages will be serviced, Mrs.
Mitchell said, thanks to the center's
infant education program that will
work with youngsters aged one day to
three years either in their homes or at
Children's Center — Clydie Mitchell, program director of the Children's Center, is all smiles as she"
prepares for the formal opening of the center, 3730 Blair. The center will help evaluate and place
handicapped children in North Louisiana and will provide training for parents and professional persons in
helping and caring for the children. (Journal Photo by Ralph Fountain)
the center.
That program, she added, will begin
by teaching a group of deaf infants to
speak and communicate. "In North
Louisiana there's no place for these
children," said Mrs. Mitchell, a special
education veteran who resigned from
her Caddo schools special ed supervisor
position to organize and form the
Children's Center.
"It's very rewarding to get very in-timately
involved with it," she said of
the center and its approach toward
helping the children. "Before (in the
public school system), we had a (child's)
name. Now we've got a child and a
family to go with the name," she said.
4-29-81 Journal