Galloway, Karisa
ECS 101
Community Binder

For the Community Resource Binder project I chose to interview Tri-Counties Regional Center about their speech therapy program. Tri-Counties has many different programs that branch off of their business. They help families in need that have children with disabilities. These disabilities can go from speech delay to a child with a mental disability. They have many professionals in the field that go out of their way to help families as best as they can to make life just a little bit easier for them and their child. My daughter and I have personally gotten to experience this ourselves, and I am still very pleased with their services.
Every business has a mission they would like to achieve. With Tri-Counties their mission is to provide support for their families to make life, working, and learning easier. Tri-Counties does their best to meet all the needs of their families that they can. They begin with evaluating the child to see in what way they need help or if they do need any help. After the evaluation they decide in what areas the child needs help and go from there. The program that I chose to interview about was speech therapy. The program is funded by the government and they are a Public agency.
As I was interviewing Heather Agrusa, I could hear in her voice how confident she was telling me about her job and the programs. Heather is about 28 years old and works as the Early Start Service Coordinator at Tri- Counties Regional Center. She helps families find what program their child needs to be in and handles the referrals that come in. I personally have been able to enjoy her services as my daughter has gone through their programs and still is. While asking her the questions she took the opportunity to send me emails giving me more information on how Tri-Counties works and sent links to their websites(will be attached below). In the Speech therapy program a therapist will come out and play with the child and show you different techniques that you can use on your own. The therapist comes out at least two times per week and stays for about an hour. They will meet you almost anywhere; home, park, museum, zoo. This program has personally helped my daughter and I know that it has helped other children as well.
Before the child’s third birthday they do another evaluation to see how far the child has come since they started the program. After the evaluation they decide whether or not they still need to be in the speech program or can move on to something else, or if they don’t need it anymore at all. Sometimes the child needs to be put in articulation class or they have to stay with the speech therapist to get more help because they aren’t progressing. The therapist comes with many different activities that can help the child.
I chose to do this certain interview because of my daughter being in the program and because I had an interest to learn more about it. I definitely felt comfortable with the program and still do. I keep in contact with Heather and also my daughter’s old speech therapist Kirsten. This program has really helped my daughter and I would recommend it to anyone who has a child with a disability. They are very flexible and know exactly what they are doing. You never have a doubt in your mind that the therapist or the program doesn’t know what they are doing. Everyone is so sweet and caring and will do their best to help in any way that they can. I know from experience that they excel in speech therapy and also their articulation classes. All of the teachers and therapist are amazing. Tri-Counties Regional Center does a great job at what they do.

References: http://www.tricounties.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=254&Itemid=6&RootId=6 http://lanterman.org/lanterman_act#.VAc7mqPjrQ8