At its monthly meeting on Sept. 26, 2022, the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities recognized the following staff member and community organizations.
- Staff Person of the Month: Jessica Weinberg, Secretary in the Community Inclusion Department
- Special Recognition: Dr. Amanda Sherratt of ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital
Jessica Weinberg
The Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities is pleased to recognize Jessica Weinberg, Community Inclusion Secretary, as the September 2022 Staff Person of the Month.
Jessica makes everyone in Community Inclusion feel valued, right down to the little things like creating welcome and birthday signs for employees, which always brightens their day. Jessica enthusiastically serves on the Employee Recognition Committee and Project Happiness committee. This last year, she was responsible for creating and printing all the coloring pages distributed to employees. Jessica currently serves on the Human Rights Peer Review committee for her understanding of the legal requirements as well as assessment and develop of plans. She is a conduit of information to SALUTE members. The group’s advisor, Deetra Mitchell, said it best, “Jessica is kind and thoughtful of others and wants to make sure everyone is included and no one is left out.”
While she is a member of the Community Inclusion Department, Jessica is always happy to answer the call from other departments. She always goes above and beyond to support coworkers and is always eager to help out. She currently records and distributes the meeting minutes for the Growing Old Gracefully committee. Recently, she supported Michele Myerholtz and Provider Supports on a project to help address the workforce shortage our providers are facing. Jessica was able to track down contacts for all area nursing schools and create an Excel spreadsheet, which was used to distribute provider job listings to those schools.
Outside of work, Jessica is a very active member of Community Advocates for Transportation. She led many of their email campaigns to push for a state-wide amendment to repeal property levies in favor of sales tax funding.
Although a lot of what she does is behind the scenes, she is making a huge impact on our mission to improve life so that individuals with developmental disabilities can reach their full potential. Congratulations, Jessica! The Board is pleased to recognize you as the September 2022 Staff Person of the Month.
Dr. Amanda Sherratt
This month’s Special Recognition illustrates the true meaning of partnership and the collaborative effort it takes to build one.
We have had the pleasure of teaming with Dr. Amanda Sherratt at Promedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital. This collaboration started with our friend Mary Bockert, the Hospital Child Find Specialist for Help Me Grow Early Intervention Lucas County. Mary knew that we at the Board want to grow our infant referrals, especially for newborns up to 3 months. Mary also knew that ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital was creating a new group being spearheaded by Dr. Amanda Sherratt and nurse Cathy Jaworski.
Parenting Centering, as the group is called, provides families with their well check at 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 24 months. At each session, families meet with Dr. Sherratt for their baby’s well check, collaborate with other families and listen to a presentation from an agency in the community that can be a resource for their baby.
Our team reached out to Cathy and explained that we wanted to provide an opportunity for new parents to participate in a Newborn Behavioral Observation (NBO) of their babies. This vital tool helps parents learn how to form stronger attachments to their babies by helping them understand body language and cues, meeting their baby’s specialized needs, and identifying any red flags for developmental delays. Dr. Sherratt and Cathy were thrilled to partner with us in providing this opportunity.
Our Early Intervention team presents the NBO at the 2-month well visit. We have 3 developmental specialists, Lauren VanTress, Sarah Uhler and Angela Fletcher, that have dedicated their time to this collaboration. The team has shared many stories about how families quickly engage with their baby during these sessions and ask many questions about development. Our sessions have been so successful that we’ve been asked to also present at the 18-month well visit to discuss developmental milestones and behaviors. We have also had several families reach out to our Intake Department to schedule a developmental evaluation to see if their child needs early intervention services.
On behalf of everyone at the Lucas County Board of DD, thank you Dr. Sherratt and ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital. We are honored tonight to present you with the Special Recognition Award for September 2022!