(ID: Elisa Valles is a Caucasian woman with long brown hair wearing a black shirt. She is standing in front of light blue background with a “The Learning Center for the Center - Walden Community Services” sign affixed on the wall on Ms. Valles’ left and a tan door on Ms. Valles’ right. This video contains a series of images that are diverse in races, color of backgrounds, clothes, logos, and materials.)
Transcript:
Elisa Valles: Hi, I’m Elisa Valles. I’m the Director of Walden Community Services (WCS) under The Learning Center for the Deaf (TLC) in the state of Massachusetts.
We are here to celebrate Deaf Awareness Week, and in recognition of human rights-which include mental health services-WCS here was established from a lawsuit that took place in 2006.
The lawsuit in 2006 was initiated by families in the state of Massachusetts that gathered together with a grievance in which that they have the right to keep their children with mental health and behavioral problems at home. In the past, they would send their children out of the state to be in different programs or schools. The families wanted their children home. The lawsuit was in their favor, so the state of Massachusetts recognized the lack of access for deaf families, including language, the proficiency of deaf workers, the knowledge of Deaf culture and so on.
The state recognized the need to establish an agency that is specialized for deaf children in the state of Massachusetts. From there on, WCS was founded.
WCS provides different services such as intensive care coordination (ICC) that follows the model of Wraparound with family partnerships. We also provide in-home therapy, therapeutic mentorships, and we work closely with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to help them to serve deaf parents and children, to help parents to develop their skills to take care of their children at home. We will provide outpatient therapy in the near future and assessments for all deaf people from the age of zero (0) to ninety-nine (99) in the state of Massachusetts.
We are thrilled to have this program and that the state recognized our human rights to mental health services and language access. We are looking forward to partner with anyone in the state, nationally, and, internationally to make this become normal and the expectations that all states and countries to provide mental health services access to deaf people all over the world.
Thank you for watching!
Негізгі бет International Deaf Awareness Week - Walden Community Services
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