FEATURE ONE-STOP SCREENINGS Help Coos County Foster Families By Cliff Collins DOLLY AND GEORGE DAGGETT of Coos Bay have served as foster parents to more than 55 children in the past 15 years, adopted one child and are permanent guardians of another. They also raised six children of their own. Before an innovative concept called the FEARsome Clinic opened in town four years ago, the Daggetts sometimes had to wait weeks to get an appointment with doctors and therapists. The Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority require foster parents to obtain assessments of a child’s physical, mental and dental health—plus developmental health if a child is under four years of age—within 30 days of a placement. That requirement was often difficult to meet, especially when several children are involved for one foster family, and need individual appointments with different practitioners, noted Carla McKelvey, MD, a Coos Bay pediatrician. Helping the helpers Now that McKelvey has spearheaded a one-stop shopping idea that became the FEARsome Clinic, foster parents can have foster children seen by a health care provider, dentist and behavioral health specialist all in one location, usually within one to two weeks after placement. The clinic also schedules follow-up appointments with primary care providers or specialists. “With the FEARsome Clinic, it is so much better for the child and the foster parents,” Dolly Daggett said. “It’s important that the doctors and others see the condition the kids are in when they first come to us. It also gives me the opportunity to talk to the doctor about medical or behavior issues right away.” McKelvey, who is a past president of the Oregon Medical Association and chairs OMA’s Access and Workforce Committee and its Bylaws Committee, also serves as director of the clinic. She says the concept came to her when she started thinking, “‘There must be a better way to take care of these kids, who often have been abused and neglected.’ I thought, ‘What if we have a one-stop shop?’” McKelvey contacted a local dentist and mental health professionals, and held multiple meetings to talk about how the idea might work. The clinic got off the ground before the coordinated care organization, or CCO, model officially came into being in Oregon. “We joke that we tried out the CCO model before CCOs started,” she said. “Which is: the concept of integrated care.” McKelvey has been a pediatrician in Coos Bay for two decades, and said she began to notice she was getting calls from existing or potential foster parents who expressed concern that securing appointments for children within 30 days was tough, and put a strain on everyone concerned. “We want to encourage people to serve as foster parents, not make things harder for them to accomplish that,” she reasoned. 12 Medicine in Oregon www.theOMA.org
OMA Medicine in OR Spring 2016
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