Pope focus on special needs families

By Senior Airman Kristopher Levasseur
Editor

Moving can be difficult for any military family – add in a family with a member who has a medical condition that requires special needs and that difficulty just grew exponentially.

Luckily for those at Pope, a focus group for special needs families has been created to try to ease the burden.

The group, which met for the second time Feb. 25, was created to give wing leadership a better idea of some of the problems that special needs families have encountered here in order to create programs to consolidate special needs assistance.

U.S. Air Force Photo by Senior Airman Kris Levasseur

Members of special needs families gather around a buffet during the special needs focus group. The group was created to allow special needs families and wing leadership an avenue to discuss special needs programs and base support.

“Our goal is to establish an enduring support group,” said Maj. Derek Cunningham, 43rd Medical Operations Squadron Mental Health Flight Commander. “My hope is that participants will give and receive friendship, empathy, compassion, and information, to name a few benefits.

“Pope has 144 special needs families enrolled,” he added. “My goal is to have 100 percent participation. Although we have yet to meet this level, I’m optimistic the group will continue to grow.”

For at least one Team Pope member, the information gained at the focus group has been invaluable.

Staff Sgt. Christina Baxter, 43rd Force Support Squadron, had experienced a relatively normal pregnancy and, during the routine prenatal testing, she and her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Steven Baxter, learned they were expecting a little girl.

When their daughter, Jade Skye Baxter was born with Down syndrome, amongst a host of other medical conditions, information about special needs programs became vital to their well-being.

“The focus group has provided my family with a lot of information and resources so far,” said Sergeant Baxter. “It has allowed us to meet with other special needs families and make good connections. Some of these families had information about programs available to us that we didn’t know about.

“We plan to continue to attend the focus group meetings until we PCS,” she added. “It’s great to see that Pope leadership is showing the initiative to help us out. They really care about our situation.”

The focus group, which will meet monthly, is open to any Pope special needs family. For more information on the program or to see when the next meeting will take place, call 394-4700.