Sara is a social worker with the Waukesha County department of Health and Human Services. Her office’s main objective is to research and fulfill requests from area families who need assistance for children with special needs. Whether the solution involves a new form of transportation or the construction of a ramp at the family’s home, Sara works tirelessly to improve the lives of everyone in her community.
Transcript
>> My name is Sara Gisbane, and I am a social worker with Waukesha Human Services. So, it's working with kids all throughout Waukesha County and their families. And what we do is we provide services to get them off of the waiver list, and the waiver list is for kids who have special needs. They may have some form of developmental disorder or a mental health or developmental disability. And so, they want to stay in their houses with their families. So, if they need a ramp we could find funding to get them a ramp. If they need transportation services, we can help them get transportation services. So what I do is I really kind of find the resources for that family but that all begins with a screen. So first we screen the family and the child and determine if they're eligible, and now we determine what level they're eligible at and then we just go forward from there. Sometimes I can go -- a family might want to meet at 8:00 a.m. Right now, it's summer so they have more flexibility because a lot of kids are out of school right now so they can meet anytime during the day. During the school hours you're working later hours because families might want to meet more like five or 6:00 at night. So it all just depends on what the family's flexibility and I go with what they need. They might need just therapy, in-home therapy; and so, we would also make sure that they are on the right insurance, that they have Medicaid approval, and we make sure that that stays the entire time. So, some families fall off. Some people come back on. We make sure those kids don't fall off of the Medicaid approval. [Inaudible] transportation is a big one. So getting kids -- so some parents don't even have a vehicle or they work two or three jobs. It's really expensive to have a child with special needs; and so, we -- a lot of times transportation. In-home therapy. A lot of times with a kid with special needs, it's hard to get them out of their house, out of their comfort zone. So it's good to bring that stuff to them. Just recently we had a child who was really just having a hard time sleeping in their bed. We got them a tent. It was as simple as getting them a tent to sleep in their bed. So, we purchased a tent for them. The child was really excited and helped pick it out, and they've been sleeping great ever since. [ Silence ]
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