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Autism program highlights the need for additional local resources

St. Joseph News-Press - 2/5/2023

Feb. 4—After noticing a need for clinical resources for autism across Northwest Missouri, one specialist spearheaded her own program to help.

Kara McGhee opened her program in August through The Center to bring resources to parents, aiming to help them better serve their children who may have different needs.

As an autism specialist, McGhee is able to assess children through her program, in tandem with Dr. James Jura providing a diagnosis right in their Downtown location. Other locations that families may look to go for help, such as Children's Mercy in Kansas City, have long wait times that would not allow families to get the immediate results and education they could benefit from.

"I wanted to offer that because I know that there's such a need everywhere, but especially in Northwest Missouri and a lot of families just need help," McGhee said.

McGhee, who has a master's degree in special education and autism spectrum disorders from the University of Kansas, offers advocacy work for parents of children with special needs by accompanying them to school meetings. Whether it be dissecting the language that can be difficult for parents to fully digest or being able to better explain what their child needs through the education system, she is there as a resource while providing comfort to the family as a whole.

"All the families that have come in have been very grateful for anything I've provided for them," McGhee said. "Some of these kids and families need counseling with us and with my knowledge of autism, I can counsel differently than other people that just do basic clinical counseling. With my autism background, I can be more specific in how I counsel and treat clients."

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 1 in 44 children is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. McGhee is pursuing her second master's as a Licensed Professional Counselor to give her a psychological background and understanding when serving clients.

As soon as she heard the program was available to the community, Jill Smith, a mother of two little girls with ASD, made the call to get in to see McGhee. She believes her daughters were one of the first clients of the Center's program.

"Kara helped me find different resources and gave me a lot of ideas on things we could do," Smith said. "She told me about some apps we could try for Adina and Aniya and just different techniques to work with. And if I had questions, she was very knowledgeable and helped me brainstorm form and think of different ways that we could work together."

A positive that Smith said made a world of difference is that her daughters adore McGhee. Smith said the Center's autism program has been life-changing, as the limited amount of resources close to home makes it hard to ensure her daughters are getting all of the help they need, as frequently as they need it.

"It just opened my eyes to different techniques that we could use with them and makes you feel more comfortable, and especially if you hear other people's stories and you feel comfortable sharing your story," Smith said. "I always randomly will meet people and they will say, 'My son has autism.' And I'm like, 'That's okay. My two daughters do, too.'"

Smith said the earlier the intervention, the better off the child will be. She hopes this program will open the eyes and minds of people in the community to the conversations surrounding autism.

"As a community, we need to be more inclusive and tolerant of other people. And this is the way to start getting the word out that autism is okay," Smith said. "Like I said, they're different, but not less. And that is what I always tell my daughters."

To contact the Center to get more information on the autism program, call (816) 364-4300.

Stef Manchen can be reached at stef.manchen@newspressnow.com.

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