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Parent involvement, fast response are key for special-needs children
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Related Topics: BALTIMORE
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks doesn’t want another child with special needs to wander away from a county-run camp, as in the recent case of Colin Hays.
The department is working on getting parent feedback and improving emergency response.
“We’re looking at more detailed evaluations to get comments for parents to incorporate into training,” said Gary Arthur, director of the Recreation and Parks Department.
“We had a very good, productive meeting.”
Ellicott City resident Kristen Detwiler, who in late June found her 7-year-old son, who walked away from a summer day camp at Veterans Elementary School in Ellicott City, joined County Executive Ken Ulman and members of the Recreation and Parks Department and Howard County Autism Society at a recent meeting.
Society members suggested the department:
» Create a speakers bureau of parents who could share their personal experiences raising children, said Kim Manning, the society’s executive director.
» Have an open house before the summer camp season so parents, their children and companion aides, those assigned to watching the children at the camps, can meet.
“It would be an informal time for companion aides and parents to establish a rapport and relationship,” said Manning.
» Have the companion aides complete an anonymous survey of their site manager to determine the adequacy of their manager’s performance, she said.
The Autism Society had said some of the aides, which include many teenagers, did not have adequate knowledge about how to care for children, such as Colin, who were autistic.
This summer, the Recreation and Parks Department has about 160 companion aides.
In addition to parental involvement, department officials want to improve their emergency response times in similar incidents, Arthur said.
Camp workers spent too much time searching for Colin before they actually notified Howard police about a missing child, he said.
The protocol will be changed so workers must perform a quick search before notifying police or emergency responders to the incident.
“I think it was a very positive meeting. I feel the county is very in tune with what needs to be done,” Detwiler said.
jkowalkowski@baltimoreexaminer.com
