October 9, 2025 • 29 mins
Kelly Payton and Callie Hindon from the King’s Home talk about how they are helping people with disabilities. We also promote their Horses and Hounds Halloween Hoopla event that will support the organization. Then Laura Dunn from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration talks about the importance of picking the right car seat, Finaly Denise Gillespie explains the mission of the Special Education Consultants Conference happening in Vestavia Hills.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Coming up next weekend, there is an opportunity for some
Halloween holiday fund for a good cause. Hello, I'm John
Mounch and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio
Network and we'll talk about the fun in just a minute,
but right now we need to talk about a serious
need here in Alabama. Joining me in the studio is
Kelly Peyton and Kellie Hendon with the King's Home. Ladies,
welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for having us so much.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's talk about what the King's Home is. I remember
for years and years hearing about the King's Ranch, and
King's Home is kind of like the next thing in
the generation of the King's Rancher.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's just a rebranding of King's Home. So King's Home
itself is a foster care system for teenagers ages twelve
and up. There's two campuses for one for boys and
one for girls. And we are the King's Stables Program
located on the boys campus in Wilsonville, and we provide
therapeutic equine services to the foster care youth within the
King's Home program.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So you guys just handled the horses, correct, Yes, Now
these horses, of course they're are they especially you know,
I trained is the wrong word. I guess. You don't
exactly train a horse, but you work with them, so
they're able to work with kids who maybe who don't
have as much experience.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes, so we have currently have twelve horses and one
miniature pony and one miniature donkey. And our horses that
we have in our program have to be very special horses.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
They have to have what we call a therapy heart.
Most of our horses are older, they're.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Kind of been there, done that, They've got any kind
of experience from jumping to just trail riding and being
family horses that needed to retire and kind of have
a step down job. We look for horses who are gentle,
easy going, you know, can take a joke, as we say,
because we never know what kind of client these horses
may be interacting with.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And they also have.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
To have a very you know, sympathetic heart to be
able to help others.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And the kids that are involved with a program. A
lot of these kids are coming from very you know,
sad situations and they need they need I guess the
stability that kings that the King's Home is able to offer.
And also the horses kind of give them an outlet
emotionally correct.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So a lot of our kids suffer with trauma PTSD,
They have emotional and behavioral needs that are a bit
more on the extreme side. And we created the Stables
program to be what it is today as a safe
haven for our kids. They can come to us. It's
away from the home, it's away from school, sports, the
(02:28):
stress of life, and it's just this quiet place where
they can come and have a moment of relaxation and
you know, a therapeutic experience with us.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And I imagine that taking care of all these horses.
My daughter's big into the equine world. And it's very
very expensive to care for horses, to acquire the horses,
and then to feed the horses and the veterinary stuff
and the farrier and all that kind of stuff. How
do you guys afford all that stuff?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yes, so we joke and say the cheapest thing about
a horse is buying it, which is a lot of
times not very cheap. We are very blessed and fortunate
that most of our horses are actually leased to us
from on a year to year basis. Just people trust
us and know that when their horses are with us
are going to be cared for very well. Some of
our horses are donated to our program, but we do
(03:14):
rely on donors and sponsorships and things like that to
run our program because we are a nonprofit. So everything
that we get is through donations to take care of
our horses. And we also do lessons to the general public,
which also kind of helps offset some of the costs
for the horses.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So what kind of lesson When you say lessons is it,
is it Western? Is it English? Both?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Most of our lessons are English. We have some Western saddles,
but for the most part we don't use them. We
teach what we call centered riding. We work with ages
five and up. We do. Our lessons are an hour
and they are thirty five dollars, so it's actually very cheap.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You look around for that at other places.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yes, if you look around at other places, our lessons
are very affordable. But we want to be able to
for people in the community who can't go to these
show barns and pay, you know, a very high price
for lessons to be able to come to us and
still get that those equin lessons because honestly, it's equon therapy.
You know, everyone needs horses in their life.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
When you say and up, so adults could also take
lessons as well, we don't. We do not have a
max age to take lessons with us. That's that's great.
So arena lessons or trail riding or both are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We have a beautiful covered arena that we actually finished
last year so we can ride rain or shine now
it is, it's got a big fan, it's insulated. So
it's a very nice facility that we have.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Who cares for the horses, is that the two of
you or and volunteers and volunteers so and you're always
looking for volunteers.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We actually have about a dozen volunteers right now that
are steady every week that we we very much appreciate
their time with us. People who necessarily can't donate financially,
donating your time is just as important because we have
a lot to do.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We're always busy.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
We have sessions all day long, and we operate with
the love and care of volunteers, which we absolutely always appreciate.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
How many people are helped by King's Home each children
are helped by King's Home each year.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
It ballpark a ballpark. We have seven operating King's Homes.
I think at the moment, each home can house up
to eight kids. In addition, we have I think twelve
to fifteen private lessons per week, and we also have
two adult programs, one for well House which hosts victims
(05:38):
of human trafficking, both adult and children. And then we
have Turning Point, which is men's addiction recovery. So those
are larger programs and those each of those can bring
up to ten clients at once, and we have a
pretty high rotation amongst those clients, so we service well
over one hundred and fifty clients per month.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I imagine that a lot of these programs you have people
who graduate and go on to go back back to life.
That's a little bit more positive. But do have any
of your alumni ever return to help out with things
like the ranch or any of the other stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
We have had some of our Kings Home youth come
back and visit us after they've moved on. We've had
some that joined the military and we'll come back and
visit us in full uniform. We've had graduates from Turning
Point who come back and assist with our program with
the Turning Point men. And we're just always happy to
see them and hear their success stories, and we are
(06:28):
also there to love them through it if they stumble
and turning point, it is not uncommon to have repeats
come back, and we are happy to see them every
time and we love them every time they do come back,
no matter the circumstance.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And Kelly, you mentioned I think you said seven facilities
King's Home.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
If I have that number correct, I know right now
we are going through a bit of construction to make
sure all the houses comply with ADA regulations. But yes,
we have boys homes and girls homes with Kings Home
as well as a women's program.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Like across the states. You mentioned Wilsonville, there's locations spread
out across the state.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, So in Wilsonville we are on the boys campus
and we have three operating homes there. There's a home
out on there's two homes in yes, in Westover, two
boys homes in Westover, and then the girls campus in
Chelsea has three operating girls homes right now.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And so this is this is something bigger than just
the Birmingham metropolitan area per se. I mean, this is
kind of central Alabama.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And the Kingshome program takes in youth from all over
the state and all over the country. We've had kids
as far away as New York as I've heard.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Let's talk about the fun, because we talked about serious
the fun. So the and you're gonna have to say
it for me. There's a lot of ages involved. The
Halloween law and Horse and Hounds and what is it?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Horses and Hounds, Halloween Hoopla.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Horses and Hounds Holiday hoop Loss. So the event is
coming up this coming weekend. The uh what is the eighteenth?
So where? So? Where is it?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
This will be taking place in Silicaga, Okay. And we
will actually have two locations for the event. One is
the parade, which will be taking place in downtown Silicaga.
It's the same route as their homecoming parade. If anybody's
familiar with the Silicaga area, they'll know where that is.
The two main streets are North Broadway and North Norton
Avenue are the two main streets we'll be on. And
(08:15):
those happen to encompass our festival, which is happening at
Central Park located across the street from Blue Belt Creameres.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So if people want to be involved in it, I
imagine there's a couple of ways you can get involved.
You can attend, or you can probably even be a participant.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Right, yes, you can participate in the parade. So the
premise of this parade is a costume contest parade for
horses and dogs and their owners. CALLI and I are
both big horse and dog people, and we know the
community loves to show off their animals, so this is
a great opportunity. Dress up your pets, dress up yourself.
We have awards for costumes, best in Show, scariest, cutest,
(08:51):
and group costumes for both dogs and horses. And if
you want to participate in the parade, you can register online.
Our event web page is www dot Kingshome dot com
slash Horses and Hounds and that is where you can
register to be a parade participant. You can register to
be a vendor in our festival if you're interested, and
(09:12):
we're also taking sponsorships and donations through that website as well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And by the way, everyone can't be Ichabod Crane. I
know that's the obvious one, but you can't all be
the headless horse.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
We had an excellent headless horseman show up last year.
They did win the scariest costume in the horse division
last year. They're going to be hard to beat if
you want to try, and also be Ichabod Crane. But
we had such a great turnout last year. We had
about fifty dogs and about a dozen horses participate in
our parade last year, and that did not include the festival.
That was just our first year doing this, and we
(09:42):
wanted to grow this event. We're hoping to make this
one of our more popular fundraisers of the year, something
that's going to attract a lot of attention to our program.
It's a fun community event for Silicaga and that area.
We are growing presence in Silicaga. We're opening a thrift
store in that area within the next year, so kings
Holmes trying to spread awareness for our programs and stuff.
(10:03):
So Silicog is a great location for a parade. We
make a loop, so we start an end, this end
in the same location, which is a big deal for
horse people.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
We like to you mean, because otherwise you got to
get the horse back to where you started.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, And we will have a police escort the whole time.
The Silicoga Police Department is wonderful working with us, making
sure we stay safe the whole time, and we love
how helpful the city has been with us. And this
festival in Central Park is going to be really big
this year. We have twenty vendors, we're gonna have live music,
we have stuff for kids to do, We've got food trucks.
(10:36):
So we're hoping to make it a really big fun
day out and the weather knock on Wood is looking
nice so far, looking that far ahead.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And to participate, is there a cost to attend? Is
there a cost to be in the parade? How does
that work?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So it is a free event to attend, come to
the festival, stay for the parade. The parade itself, if
you want to participate, it's ten dollars per dog entry
and twenty dollars per horse entry. And that is how
we're kind of getting a little bit of revenue from this,
is those parade entry fees.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I was gonna say that's not a lot of revenue, though,
How do you guys make money off of all this?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So a lot of it comes from the sponsorships. People
get involved, they see how exciting this is and they
want to sponsor us, or they want to give us
a donation. We accept donations of all sizes. Any donation
is tax tax deductible, and so that's where we're going
to get a lot of our revenues through that. And
also vendors, we are not charging a vendor rental fee.
(11:28):
All the vendors have pledged to donate ten percent of
their profits of the day to our program. So that's
how we're working at this year.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That when you mentioned donations, in addition to donating money,
which of course is much appreciated, you can also donate time,
can't you correctly, And you could also donate probably you
need things for the bar, and like you need feed
and well you know, I gently use saddle things like that.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yes, we're always trying to improve our program when it
comes to things like you know, tax donations and things
like that. We are working on creating an updated wish
list of things that our program is in most need of.
People's time is, like we said, is always appreciated and invaluable.
People come out to clean stalls for us, They come
out to give the horse a bath, They come out
(12:13):
to help with lessons because we sometimes need help leading horses,
having sidewalkers, having just help with the larger groups of
students and whatnot. So always looking for any and all
types of donations that people are willing to give, and.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I imagine any experience level, from the most beginner to
people who actually need a little bit more advice. They've
been writing for years and they just like a little
bit more advice.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
On Absolutely, we take all levels. We specialize in beginners.
We are perfectly happy to teach you everything you need
to know. You might have never seen a horse once
in your life, but guess what you're about to meet
twelve of them. You're going to get hands on experience
and we will train you. We'll give you all the
knowledge you need, and we are very willing to work
with anybody on their skill level.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Okay, so once again, the event is the eighteenth. What time?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So the festival will open at nine am and run
through two pm, and that's in Central Park and the
parade will begin at ten am. If you want to
be in the parade, our lineup will start at nine thirty.
So we're asking people to arrive a little bit earlier
than that, about eight thirty or so, to get ready,
get registered, get in line, and then I think last
(13:17):
year the parade ran for about thirty minutes or so
forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's a good route.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It's a nice it's a nice long route, so not
too long to walk if you're a dog owner, but
worth it for your time and effort, for the costumes
and the horses and the hauling and all that.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And for more information wwwa kingshome dot com forward slash
Horses and Hounds and you can get all the information
that we have talked about, Kelly, Kelly, anything I missed
that you wanted to.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Hit on here, I will say we are going to
have an adoption event with a lot of the local
shelters at this.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Dogs or horses, dogs, dogs, dogs.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
If we had an adoption of it for horses, we
might adopt them all, but yes for dogs. So we
will have that in for the fist like in the
park after the parade, and then a lot of the
dogs will actually be participating in the parade. I'm not
sure what all shelters the rescues we have signed up
right now.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
We've got three right now. We have the Silicoga Animal Shelter,
the Lake Martin Animal Shelter, and the local rescue called Love,
Hope and Palls and that is actually Stems from last
year's parade. From the parade itself, the Silicaga Shelter had
four dogs adopted that day, which is a big deal
to have that many adoptions in one day from one event,
So we wanted to expand on that and all the
(14:30):
dogs that they're putting in their parade, they are then
going to swing into Central Park and have their own
adoption events. So we're looking to have probably twenty or
more dogs in the park itself that you can come
out and meet and interact with, see them dressed up
in their adorable costumes, and hopefully we're going to find
a lot of dogs a lot of good homes this year.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Horses and Hounds Halloween Hoop Block coming up on the eighteenth.
Thank you so much, ladies for coming in and telling
us all about it and telling me about the King's Home.
Because you guys do a lot of work and a
lot of great work for all of us here in Alabama.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And this is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mounts, and I know I often
talk about sciencey stuff in physics, and you know one
of my favorite physicists is Newton and he created his
laws of motion. And you say, what are you talking about.
Follow me here. The first law of motion, an object
at rest will remain at rest, and an object in
(15:23):
motion at a constant speed will remain in motion in
that direction unless it's acted on by another force. And
when you're talking, that object is a child in a car.
When the car stops, the child does not necessarily stop
unless something stops the child. And that's something. If it's
not a car seat, it's a windshield. And that's the
reason why. Right now I'm speaking with the National Transportation
(15:45):
Highway specialist Laura Dunn. Laura, welcome to Viewpoint, Alabama.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Thank you for having me, Laura.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
This is a great time to remind parents of the
importance of keeping your child restrained while we're traveling in
a car. And I know oftentimes it's a thought, well,
I'm only going a couple miles, I'm not getting on
the highway. I'm just going slowly around my neighborhood. But
still crashes happen and children become projectiles.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
This is true. This week is Child Passenger Safety Week,
and we want to remind parents and caregivers of the
importance of using the right car seats for your child's
agent size, and then using that seat every trip every time.
We recommend keeping children in a rear facing car seat
as long as possible, and the safest place for all
kids under the age of thirteen is in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And that's often hard to do if you have, like
say a pickup truck or something like that. However, if
you do have a passenger car that has a second
row seating, it's best if you can put if you
can keep them in the back. Does it matter which side,
like should you? When I had a my daughter was
an infant, we thought that the middle seat was the
best place for the car seat. Is that way you're
further from the wall. Does it really matter which position
(16:53):
you put them in the back seat?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
It doesn't. Every seating position in the back seat is safe.
Some parents do like the middle For me personally, when
I had little ones, I was doing a lot of
street parking where I lived, so I made sure to
install my child's seats on the passenger side, so they
were on the sidewalk side instead of the street side
when I was parking. So just things like that are consideration.
(17:17):
Some parents like to use that back passenger position too,
so they can glance over their shoulder when they're at
a stop life and you know, make sure that everybody's
doing okay back there. But yes, every seating position in
the back seat.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Is there's different size seats depending on the child's Is
it based on the child's age or the child's weight.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Child passenger seaf feed is very size dependent, so you're
going to be looking mainly at a child's height and
weight when you're looking at car seats, but sometimes age
is a factor two with certain types.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Of seats, and we're talking about these the rear facing
car seats. You transition from rear facing to a front
facing somewhere around what weight or height.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
It's very dependent on the type of car seat that
you have. So we want to encourage parents to keep
their children rear facing. So there's a lot of seats
to kind of accomplish that. So many parents start with
what we would call a rear facing only or an
infant seat. You know that you can take in and
out of the base. That's something that's pretty common that
people use for little ones. After that, you can transition
(18:25):
to a seat called a convertible seat. It converts from
rear facing to forward facing, and those convertible seats have
a higher weight at height limit for rear facing, so
that's an option if you want to keep your child
rear facing longer, is to transition them into that rear
facing convertible or there are other seats called all in
(18:46):
ones that also have a similar like higher rear facing
weight limit, and then they transition to be forward facing,
both convertibles and all in.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Ones, And then the next step is once they get
to be somewhere around know weight dependent, but I think
it was somewhere around my daughter was about maybe four
or five something like that. There's the booster seat where
they're sitting in the regular car seat, but they're not
quite They're not quite big enough for the for the
seat belt to because you want that that shoulder harness
to go across their their chest. You don't want it
(19:15):
strangling them, so you need to sometimes raise them up
a little so they fit properly within the seat belt,
the regular seatbelt, right, So.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
You know, seat belts are designed for adults, and that
booster seat really is a critical step to ensure that
that seat belt fits kids correctly, so it positions your
child so that adult seat belt fits properly over the
strongest parts of their body. So you want that shoulder
belt sitting across the collarboat across the shoulder, not up
(19:45):
on the neck, and the lat belt low across your
child's hips and not up on their stomach to prevent
injury in a crash. And that is the safest way
for them to write than a booster with a seatbelt.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And this is all very important because last well twenty
twenty three, over eighty five percent of children fourteen and
under who were in passenger vehicles they survived fatal crashes
because they were restrained, and I imagine similar statistics will
come out for the year twenty fourteen as well. It's
very important. I've even seen displays where there was a
crash involving a vehicle a van, and there was like
(20:25):
fifteen people in the van and there was a child
in a car seat in the van. Everybody died except
for the child who was in a rear facing car
seat in the van. In the a seat was actually
thrown from the van and the child was still secured
to the seat and survived, not a scratch on them.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
I have seen that as well as remarkable car sieats
are remarkably effective and when they're installed correctly, car seats
can reduce the risk of fatal injury in the crash
by seventy one percent for instance, and fifty four percent
for childers. To really put this issue in perspective for
parents in your day to day life, in twenty twenty,
three of three children were killed and four hundred and
(21:02):
forty two children were injured every day in traffic crashes.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Laura, is there a place people can go in their
communities typically where they can because if you're a new parent,
maybe you're unsure of exactly how to install that car seat,
especially because newer cars have new or more complicated systems
of seat belts and that kind of thing. And this
clips into that, clips into that that you can take
your car and somebody can actually help you, like a
fire station or a police station like that, where somebody
can actually help show you how to secure that car
(21:29):
seat properly in your seat, because it doesn't work if
your child is buckled into the car seat but the
car seats attached to nothing.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Absolutely. So we have a very cool tool on our
website called the Car Seat Infection Station Locator, and you
can put in your zip code, and it will give
you a list of infection station's carseat check events that
are near you where you can get hands on help
from Child Passenger Siety technicians. So a lot of these
folks that are certified Child Passenger Siety texts are police, fire, EMA,
(22:00):
local public health departments, children's hospital safety organizations. So and
many of those organizations will be hosting carsey check events
this week because it's Child Passitor Safety Week and especially
on National feed Check Saturday. So check out for advertising
in your area about free kursy check events and check
our website are such a station locator to see if
(22:22):
there's any events near you that you can take advantage.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All great advice. Laura Dunn with the National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration, thank you so much for joining me this
week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And our final guest today on Viewpoint Alabama is Denise Gillespie.
She is with CICCO, or the Special Education Consultants and
Conference Organizers. Every year they hold a conference to help
people who are helping those with disabilities. Denise, Welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Good morning, John, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Denise. Before we get into the conference, let's talk about
what the three organizations that make up CICCO do.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
We've all got special education in our background. I'm going
to retire special ed teacher as well as one of
the other ladies. One of our ladies is currently still
teaching with the special needs groups in the Birmingham system.
We host this every fall. Oftentimes in the spring will
have another one in Huntsville or in another city in
the state, but we always hold Birmingham one because it's
(23:18):
been a huge success.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
What sort of things do you do at these events?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
This year, there's going to be thirteen speakers and they'll
be in the format of breakout sessions. Everybody will start
in the fellowship hall like you mentioned at Best Davy
Hills Baptist Church. They'll start in one room and hear
the keynote speaker, which is going to be this year,
it's going to be the Alabama State Department Director of
Special Education, doctor dale Cha Chambers. She's going to be
(23:44):
there for the keynote, and after the keynote is finished,
the attendees will have their choice of which other session
they'd like to listen to. There's going to be three
other rooms and they just pick which topic interests them
the most, and they go to listen to that speaker,
and then each timeslot has a different set of speakers
going on in those rooms.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And this is a intended for people who are caretakers,
or educators or all the above.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
All of the above is going to be focused as
mainly on the teachers and parents, but anybody that works
with special needs students would benefit from hearing the different
topics because there's such a variety of topics that we're
going to be presenting that you're abound to learn new
stuff that you didn't know before the fourteenth.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
When you talk about special needs, are we talking about
people who have physical disabilities or people who have intellectual challenges,
emotional challenges? What sort of problems are we trying to overcome?
And are these mostly these are mostly children or younger
people right?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Well, actually it's any individuals, but typically the topics are
geared towards young children to young adults, but it incorporates
developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, ADHD, emotional difficulties,
speech and language problems, those with intellectual dis building to
(25:00):
fall under the category of developmental disorders. Just a wide
variety of people who have challenges at an early age
and typically have those challenges throughout their lives. But we
do also have one of our speakers is going to
be talking about adult resources and programs that are available
(25:21):
as a age so it's all age groups.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
And I feel like that's something that is not often
talked about, is people who grow who have developmental disabilities
as children, they grow up to become adults, and if
they're not dealt with early, those problems can limit them
in terms of what they're able to do in the future,
as opposed to setting them up with strategies and resources
to be able to better operate in society with all
(25:44):
the other adults exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
So we try to not necessarily target the younger ones,
but we do need the younger teachers and parents of
younger children in there at an early time frame so
that they can start learning those strategies and methods of
how to cope with the different challenges that those individuals
face every day.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And this is mostly behavioral, it's not pharmacologic. In other words,
there's not a lot of discussion of medications. It's more
discussion of how they can strategies to where they can
better navigate society.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Right right, classroom management, home management, just cross settings. How
to deal with the individual challenges that child may have,
whether they're at the home, that grocery store in the classroom,
just thinks that they may whether it's speech, behavior, just communication, social,
all of those topics.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This is your Point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mountson speaking with Denise Gillespie. And
Denise we mentioned did we mention Mitchell's place yet? No,
I have not, So let's tell me about Mitchell's Place.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
They're also nonprofit and they're going to be providing and
they offer special needs resources. There are people that are
going to come and talk with us and they'll be
talking about managing behaviors, feeding the school age child, and
somebody also who will be helping parents advocate for their
disabled child. So it's just arrange that they're going to
(27:14):
bring their expertise.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And the event is November the fourteenth and it's a
Vestavia Hills Baptist Church. Now for those who are we're
covering the entire state with this program, so we have
people listening in Mobile and Huntsville. Vestavia Hills is near
Birmingham and this would be beneficial to people from anywhere
in the state really who define So even if you
know it's a little bit of drive in if you're immobile,
(27:36):
but it would still be worth it if you're if
you're dealing with children.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Who anyone even across state, and adults.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, who would benefit from this sort of thing. There's
a cost to attend, and I assume that cost. Part
of that is to pay for the speakers, pay for
the space, and also probably there you'll be serving lunch
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Right, right, correct, Yes, there is a price of one
twenty five each. There's a group discount of six for
six or more than registered together, and that goes through me,
So you can find my information on the website and
just reach out to me. Plus there's some information on
how to get to do the purchase orders if you
want to do a purchase order. All of that's on
the website. But it's one twenty five for registration. Now.
(28:17):
We're also open to more exhibitors. We've got quite a
few already lined up. But if there's somebody who's interested
in exhibiting at the conference, again, they can reach out
to me and we can get them registered as an
exhibitor and That information also is on the website which
is Ciccoconferences dot com. That's SECCO Conferences dot com. For
(28:39):
teachers who need CEU hours, those are going to be awarded.
There's six and a half hours that you'll get for
the whole day and also purchase orders like I mentioned before,
those are also accepted if you're an exhibitor and you're
working with the State Department of out with the State Department,
we also accept going through the Stars program, which is
(28:59):
the vendor program through the State Department.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So a lot going on for educators or caretakers, anyone
who wants to try and learn or grow and know
more about this. Denise, thank you so much for joining
us on viewpoint and everyone. You will be there right right.
I will be there, so I'm sure you look forward
to seeing everybody out there at the event. Coming here
to be wonderful November the fourteenth at Veastavia Hills Baptist
(29:22):
Church and the website one more time.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Uh Ciccoconferences dot com, Seccoconferences dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Or put that into Google and I'm sure it'll take
you right there. Thank you so much Denise for being
my guest this week.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
John, you've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs
program from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on
Viewpoint Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management,
or advertisers of this station
Coming up next weekend, there is an opportunity for some
Halloween holiday fund for a good cause. Hello, I'm John
Mounch and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio
Network and we'll talk about the fun in just a minute,
but right now we need to talk about a serious
need here in Alabama. Joining me in the studio is
Kelly Peyton and Kellie Hendon with the King's Home. Ladies,
welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thank you for having us so much.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's talk about what the King's Home is. I remember
for years and years hearing about the King's Ranch, and
King's Home is kind of like the next thing in
the generation of the King's Rancher.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's just a rebranding of King's Home. So King's Home
itself is a foster care system for teenagers ages twelve
and up. There's two campuses for one for boys and
one for girls. And we are the King's Stables Program
located on the boys campus in Wilsonville, and we provide
therapeutic equine services to the foster care youth within the
King's Home program.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
So you guys just handled the horses, correct, Yes, Now
these horses, of course they're are they especially you know,
I trained is the wrong word. I guess. You don't
exactly train a horse, but you work with them, so
they're able to work with kids who maybe who don't
have as much experience.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes, so we have currently have twelve horses and one
miniature pony and one miniature donkey. And our horses that
we have in our program have to be very special horses.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
They have to have what we call a therapy heart.
Most of our horses are older, they're.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Kind of been there, done that, They've got any kind
of experience from jumping to just trail riding and being
family horses that needed to retire and kind of have
a step down job. We look for horses who are gentle,
easy going, you know, can take a joke, as we say,
because we never know what kind of client these horses
may be interacting with.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And they also have.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
To have a very you know, sympathetic heart to be
able to help others.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And the kids that are involved with a program. A
lot of these kids are coming from very you know,
sad situations and they need they need I guess the
stability that kings that the King's Home is able to offer.
And also the horses kind of give them an outlet
emotionally correct.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So a lot of our kids suffer with trauma PTSD,
They have emotional and behavioral needs that are a bit
more on the extreme side. And we created the Stables
program to be what it is today as a safe
haven for our kids. They can come to us. It's
away from the home, it's away from school, sports, the
(02:28):
stress of life, and it's just this quiet place where
they can come and have a moment of relaxation and
you know, a therapeutic experience with us.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And I imagine that taking care of all these horses.
My daughter's big into the equine world. And it's very
very expensive to care for horses, to acquire the horses,
and then to feed the horses and the veterinary stuff
and the farrier and all that kind of stuff. How
do you guys afford all that stuff?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yes, so we joke and say the cheapest thing about
a horse is buying it, which is a lot of
times not very cheap. We are very blessed and fortunate
that most of our horses are actually leased to us
from on a year to year basis. Just people trust
us and know that when their horses are with us
are going to be cared for very well. Some of
our horses are donated to our program, but we do
(03:14):
rely on donors and sponsorships and things like that to
run our program because we are a nonprofit. So everything
that we get is through donations to take care of
our horses. And we also do lessons to the general public,
which also kind of helps offset some of the costs
for the horses.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So what kind of lesson When you say lessons is it,
is it Western? Is it English? Both?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Most of our lessons are English. We have some Western saddles,
but for the most part we don't use them. We
teach what we call centered riding. We work with ages
five and up. We do. Our lessons are an hour
and they are thirty five dollars, so it's actually very cheap.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You look around for that at other places.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yes, if you look around at other places, our lessons
are very affordable. But we want to be able to
for people in the community who can't go to these
show barns and pay, you know, a very high price
for lessons to be able to come to us and
still get that those equin lessons because honestly, it's equon therapy.
You know, everyone needs horses in their life.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
When you say and up, so adults could also take
lessons as well, we don't. We do not have a
max age to take lessons with us. That's that's great.
So arena lessons or trail riding or both are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
We have a beautiful covered arena that we actually finished
last year so we can ride rain or shine now
it is, it's got a big fan, it's insulated. So
it's a very nice facility that we have.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Who cares for the horses, is that the two of
you or and volunteers and volunteers so and you're always
looking for volunteers.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We actually have about a dozen volunteers right now that
are steady every week that we we very much appreciate
their time with us. People who necessarily can't donate financially,
donating your time is just as important because we have
a lot to do.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We're always busy.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
We have sessions all day long, and we operate with
the love and care of volunteers, which we absolutely always appreciate.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
How many people are helped by King's Home each children
are helped by King's Home each year.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
It ballpark a ballpark. We have seven operating King's Homes.
I think at the moment, each home can house up
to eight kids. In addition, we have I think twelve
to fifteen private lessons per week, and we also have
two adult programs, one for well House which hosts victims
(05:38):
of human trafficking, both adult and children. And then we
have Turning Point, which is men's addiction recovery. So those
are larger programs and those each of those can bring
up to ten clients at once, and we have a
pretty high rotation amongst those clients, so we service well
over one hundred and fifty clients per month.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I imagine that a lot of these programs you have people
who graduate and go on to go back back to life.
That's a little bit more positive. But do have any
of your alumni ever return to help out with things
like the ranch or any of the other stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
We have had some of our Kings Home youth come
back and visit us after they've moved on. We've had
some that joined the military and we'll come back and
visit us in full uniform. We've had graduates from Turning
Point who come back and assist with our program with
the Turning Point men. And we're just always happy to
see them and hear their success stories, and we are
(06:28):
also there to love them through it if they stumble
and turning point, it is not uncommon to have repeats
come back, and we are happy to see them every
time and we love them every time they do come back,
no matter the circumstance.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And Kelly, you mentioned I think you said seven facilities
King's Home.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
If I have that number correct, I know right now
we are going through a bit of construction to make
sure all the houses comply with ADA regulations. But yes,
we have boys homes and girls homes with Kings Home
as well as a women's program.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Like across the states. You mentioned Wilsonville, there's locations spread
out across the state.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, So in Wilsonville we are on the boys campus
and we have three operating homes there. There's a home
out on there's two homes in yes, in Westover, two
boys homes in Westover, and then the girls campus in
Chelsea has three operating girls homes right now.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And so this is this is something bigger than just
the Birmingham metropolitan area per se. I mean, this is
kind of central Alabama.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And the Kingshome program takes in youth from all over
the state and all over the country. We've had kids
as far away as New York as I've heard.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Let's talk about the fun, because we talked about serious
the fun. So the and you're gonna have to say
it for me. There's a lot of ages involved. The
Halloween law and Horse and Hounds and what is it?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Horses and Hounds, Halloween Hoopla.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Horses and Hounds Holiday hoop Loss. So the event is
coming up this coming weekend. The uh what is the eighteenth?
So where? So? Where is it?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
This will be taking place in Silicaga, Okay. And we
will actually have two locations for the event. One is
the parade, which will be taking place in downtown Silicaga.
It's the same route as their homecoming parade. If anybody's
familiar with the Silicaga area, they'll know where that is.
The two main streets are North Broadway and North Norton
Avenue are the two main streets we'll be on. And
(08:15):
those happen to encompass our festival, which is happening at
Central Park located across the street from Blue Belt Creameres.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So if people want to be involved in it, I
imagine there's a couple of ways you can get involved.
You can attend, or you can probably even be a participant.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Right, yes, you can participate in the parade. So the
premise of this parade is a costume contest parade for
horses and dogs and their owners. CALLI and I are
both big horse and dog people, and we know the
community loves to show off their animals, so this is
a great opportunity. Dress up your pets, dress up yourself.
We have awards for costumes, best in Show, scariest, cutest,
(08:51):
and group costumes for both dogs and horses. And if
you want to participate in the parade, you can register online.
Our event web page is www dot Kingshome dot com
slash Horses and Hounds and that is where you can
register to be a parade participant. You can register to
be a vendor in our festival if you're interested, and
(09:12):
we're also taking sponsorships and donations through that website as well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And by the way, everyone can't be Ichabod Crane. I
know that's the obvious one, but you can't all be
the headless horse.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
We had an excellent headless horseman show up last year.
They did win the scariest costume in the horse division
last year. They're going to be hard to beat if
you want to try, and also be Ichabod Crane. But
we had such a great turnout last year. We had
about fifty dogs and about a dozen horses participate in
our parade last year, and that did not include the festival.
That was just our first year doing this, and we
(09:42):
wanted to grow this event. We're hoping to make this
one of our more popular fundraisers of the year, something
that's going to attract a lot of attention to our program.
It's a fun community event for Silicaga and that area.
We are growing presence in Silicaga. We're opening a thrift
store in that area within the next year, so kings
Holmes trying to spread awareness for our programs and stuff.
(10:03):
So Silicog is a great location for a parade. We
make a loop, so we start an end, this end
in the same location, which is a big deal for
horse people.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
We like to you mean, because otherwise you got to
get the horse back to where you started.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yes, And we will have a police escort the whole time.
The Silicoga Police Department is wonderful working with us, making
sure we stay safe the whole time, and we love
how helpful the city has been with us. And this
festival in Central Park is going to be really big
this year. We have twenty vendors, we're gonna have live music,
we have stuff for kids to do, We've got food trucks.
(10:36):
So we're hoping to make it a really big fun
day out and the weather knock on Wood is looking
nice so far, looking that far ahead.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And to participate, is there a cost to attend? Is
there a cost to be in the parade? How does
that work?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
So it is a free event to attend, come to
the festival, stay for the parade. The parade itself, if
you want to participate, it's ten dollars per dog entry
and twenty dollars per horse entry. And that is how
we're kind of getting a little bit of revenue from this,
is those parade entry fees.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I was gonna say that's not a lot of revenue, though,
How do you guys make money off of all this?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So a lot of it comes from the sponsorships. People
get involved, they see how exciting this is and they
want to sponsor us, or they want to give us
a donation. We accept donations of all sizes. Any donation
is tax tax deductible, and so that's where we're going
to get a lot of our revenues through that. And
also vendors, we are not charging a vendor rental fee.
(11:28):
All the vendors have pledged to donate ten percent of
their profits of the day to our program. So that's
how we're working at this year.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That when you mentioned donations, in addition to donating money,
which of course is much appreciated, you can also donate time,
can't you correctly, And you could also donate probably you
need things for the bar, and like you need feed
and well you know, I gently use saddle things like that.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yes, we're always trying to improve our program when it
comes to things like you know, tax donations and things
like that. We are working on creating an updated wish
list of things that our program is in most need of.
People's time is, like we said, is always appreciated and invaluable.
People come out to clean stalls for us, They come
out to give the horse a bath, They come out
(12:13):
to help with lessons because we sometimes need help leading horses,
having sidewalkers, having just help with the larger groups of
students and whatnot. So always looking for any and all
types of donations that people are willing to give, and.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I imagine any experience level, from the most beginner to
people who actually need a little bit more advice. They've
been writing for years and they just like a little
bit more advice.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
On Absolutely, we take all levels. We specialize in beginners.
We are perfectly happy to teach you everything you need
to know. You might have never seen a horse once
in your life, but guess what you're about to meet
twelve of them. You're going to get hands on experience
and we will train you. We'll give you all the
knowledge you need, and we are very willing to work
with anybody on their skill level.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Okay, so once again, the event is the eighteenth. What time?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So the festival will open at nine am and run
through two pm, and that's in Central Park and the
parade will begin at ten am. If you want to
be in the parade, our lineup will start at nine thirty.
So we're asking people to arrive a little bit earlier
than that, about eight thirty or so, to get ready,
get registered, get in line, and then I think last
(13:17):
year the parade ran for about thirty minutes or so
forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's a good route.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It's a nice it's a nice long route, so not
too long to walk if you're a dog owner, but
worth it for your time and effort, for the costumes
and the horses and the hauling and all that.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And for more information wwwa kingshome dot com forward slash
Horses and Hounds and you can get all the information
that we have talked about, Kelly, Kelly, anything I missed
that you wanted to.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Hit on here, I will say we are going to
have an adoption event with a lot of the local
shelters at this.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Dogs or horses, dogs, dogs, dogs.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
If we had an adoption of it for horses, we
might adopt them all, but yes for dogs. So we
will have that in for the fist like in the
park after the parade, and then a lot of the
dogs will actually be participating in the parade. I'm not
sure what all shelters the rescues we have signed up
right now.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
We've got three right now. We have the Silicoga Animal Shelter,
the Lake Martin Animal Shelter, and the local rescue called Love,
Hope and Palls and that is actually Stems from last
year's parade. From the parade itself, the Silicaga Shelter had
four dogs adopted that day, which is a big deal
to have that many adoptions in one day from one event,
So we wanted to expand on that and all the
(14:30):
dogs that they're putting in their parade, they are then
going to swing into Central Park and have their own
adoption events. So we're looking to have probably twenty or
more dogs in the park itself that you can come
out and meet and interact with, see them dressed up
in their adorable costumes, and hopefully we're going to find
a lot of dogs a lot of good homes this year.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Horses and Hounds Halloween Hoop Block coming up on the eighteenth.
Thank you so much, ladies for coming in and telling
us all about it and telling me about the King's Home.
Because you guys do a lot of work and a
lot of great work for all of us here in Alabama.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And this is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mounts, and I know I often
talk about sciencey stuff in physics, and you know one
of my favorite physicists is Newton and he created his
laws of motion. And you say, what are you talking about.
Follow me here. The first law of motion, an object
at rest will remain at rest, and an object in
(15:23):
motion at a constant speed will remain in motion in
that direction unless it's acted on by another force. And
when you're talking, that object is a child in a car.
When the car stops, the child does not necessarily stop
unless something stops the child. And that's something. If it's
not a car seat, it's a windshield. And that's the
reason why. Right now I'm speaking with the National Transportation
(15:45):
Highway specialist Laura Dunn. Laura, welcome to Viewpoint, Alabama.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Thank you for having me, Laura.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
This is a great time to remind parents of the
importance of keeping your child restrained while we're traveling in
a car. And I know oftentimes it's a thought, well,
I'm only going a couple miles, I'm not getting on
the highway. I'm just going slowly around my neighborhood. But
still crashes happen and children become projectiles.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
This is true. This week is Child Passenger Safety Week,
and we want to remind parents and caregivers of the
importance of using the right car seats for your child's
agent size, and then using that seat every trip every time.
We recommend keeping children in a rear facing car seat
as long as possible, and the safest place for all
kids under the age of thirteen is in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And that's often hard to do if you have, like
say a pickup truck or something like that. However, if
you do have a passenger car that has a second
row seating, it's best if you can put if you
can keep them in the back. Does it matter which side,
like should you? When I had a my daughter was
an infant, we thought that the middle seat was the
best place for the car seat. Is that way you're
further from the wall. Does it really matter which position
(16:53):
you put them in the back seat?
Speaker 5 (16:55):
It doesn't. Every seating position in the back seat is safe.
Some parents do like the middle For me personally, when
I had little ones, I was doing a lot of
street parking where I lived, so I made sure to
install my child's seats on the passenger side, so they
were on the sidewalk side instead of the street side
when I was parking. So just things like that are consideration.
(17:17):
Some parents like to use that back passenger position too,
so they can glance over their shoulder when they're at
a stop life and you know, make sure that everybody's
doing okay back there. But yes, every seating position in
the back seat.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Is there's different size seats depending on the child's Is
it based on the child's age or the child's weight.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Child passenger seaf feed is very size dependent, so you're
going to be looking mainly at a child's height and
weight when you're looking at car seats, but sometimes age
is a factor two with certain types.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Of seats, and we're talking about these the rear facing
car seats. You transition from rear facing to a front
facing somewhere around what weight or height.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
It's very dependent on the type of car seat that
you have. So we want to encourage parents to keep
their children rear facing. So there's a lot of seats
to kind of accomplish that. So many parents start with
what we would call a rear facing only or an
infant seat. You know that you can take in and
out of the base. That's something that's pretty common that
people use for little ones. After that, you can transition
(18:25):
to a seat called a convertible seat. It converts from
rear facing to forward facing, and those convertible seats have
a higher weight at height limit for rear facing, so
that's an option if you want to keep your child
rear facing longer, is to transition them into that rear
facing convertible or there are other seats called all in
(18:46):
ones that also have a similar like higher rear facing
weight limit, and then they transition to be forward facing,
both convertibles and all in.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Ones, And then the next step is once they get
to be somewhere around know weight dependent, but I think
it was somewhere around my daughter was about maybe four
or five something like that. There's the booster seat where
they're sitting in the regular car seat, but they're not
quite They're not quite big enough for the for the
seat belt to because you want that that shoulder harness
to go across their their chest. You don't want it
(19:15):
strangling them, so you need to sometimes raise them up
a little so they fit properly within the seat belt,
the regular seatbelt, right, So.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
You know, seat belts are designed for adults, and that
booster seat really is a critical step to ensure that
that seat belt fits kids correctly, so it positions your
child so that adult seat belt fits properly over the
strongest parts of their body. So you want that shoulder
belt sitting across the collarboat across the shoulder, not up
(19:45):
on the neck, and the lat belt low across your
child's hips and not up on their stomach to prevent
injury in a crash. And that is the safest way
for them to write than a booster with a seatbelt.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And this is all very important because last well twenty
twenty three, over eighty five percent of children fourteen and
under who were in passenger vehicles they survived fatal crashes
because they were restrained, and I imagine similar statistics will
come out for the year twenty fourteen as well. It's
very important. I've even seen displays where there was a
crash involving a vehicle a van, and there was like
(20:25):
fifteen people in the van and there was a child
in a car seat in the van. Everybody died except
for the child who was in a rear facing car
seat in the van. In the a seat was actually
thrown from the van and the child was still secured
to the seat and survived, not a scratch on them.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
I have seen that as well as remarkable car sieats
are remarkably effective and when they're installed correctly, car seats
can reduce the risk of fatal injury in the crash
by seventy one percent for instance, and fifty four percent
for childers. To really put this issue in perspective for
parents in your day to day life, in twenty twenty,
three of three children were killed and four hundred and
(21:02):
forty two children were injured every day in traffic crashes.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Laura, is there a place people can go in their
communities typically where they can because if you're a new parent,
maybe you're unsure of exactly how to install that car seat,
especially because newer cars have new or more complicated systems
of seat belts and that kind of thing. And this
clips into that, clips into that that you can take
your car and somebody can actually help you, like a
fire station or a police station like that, where somebody
can actually help show you how to secure that car
(21:29):
seat properly in your seat, because it doesn't work if
your child is buckled into the car seat but the
car seats attached to nothing.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Absolutely. So we have a very cool tool on our
website called the Car Seat Infection Station Locator, and you
can put in your zip code, and it will give
you a list of infection station's carseat check events that
are near you where you can get hands on help
from Child Passenger Siety technicians. So a lot of these
folks that are certified Child Passenger Siety texts are police, fire, EMA,
(22:00):
local public health departments, children's hospital safety organizations. So and
many of those organizations will be hosting carsey check events
this week because it's Child Passitor Safety Week and especially
on National feed Check Saturday. So check out for advertising
in your area about free kursy check events and check
our website are such a station locator to see if
(22:22):
there's any events near you that you can take advantage.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All great advice. Laura Dunn with the National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration, thank you so much for joining me this
week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And our final guest today on Viewpoint Alabama is Denise Gillespie.
She is with CICCO, or the Special Education Consultants and
Conference Organizers. Every year they hold a conference to help
people who are helping those with disabilities. Denise, Welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Good morning, John, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Denise. Before we get into the conference, let's talk about
what the three organizations that make up CICCO do.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
We've all got special education in our background. I'm going
to retire special ed teacher as well as one of
the other ladies. One of our ladies is currently still
teaching with the special needs groups in the Birmingham system.
We host this every fall. Oftentimes in the spring will
have another one in Huntsville or in another city in
the state, but we always hold Birmingham one because it's
(23:18):
been a huge success.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
What sort of things do you do at these events?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
This year, there's going to be thirteen speakers and they'll
be in the format of breakout sessions. Everybody will start
in the fellowship hall like you mentioned at Best Davy
Hills Baptist Church. They'll start in one room and hear
the keynote speaker, which is going to be this year,
it's going to be the Alabama State Department Director of
Special Education, doctor dale Cha Chambers. She's going to be
(23:44):
there for the keynote, and after the keynote is finished,
the attendees will have their choice of which other session
they'd like to listen to. There's going to be three
other rooms and they just pick which topic interests them
the most, and they go to listen to that speaker,
and then each timeslot has a different set of speakers
going on in those rooms.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And this is a intended for people who are caretakers,
or educators or all the above.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
All of the above is going to be focused as
mainly on the teachers and parents, but anybody that works
with special needs students would benefit from hearing the different
topics because there's such a variety of topics that we're
going to be presenting that you're abound to learn new
stuff that you didn't know before the fourteenth.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
When you talk about special needs, are we talking about
people who have physical disabilities or people who have intellectual challenges,
emotional challenges? What sort of problems are we trying to overcome?
And are these mostly these are mostly children or younger
people right?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Well, actually it's any individuals, but typically the topics are
geared towards young children to young adults, but it incorporates
developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, ADHD, emotional difficulties,
speech and language problems, those with intellectual dis building to
(25:00):
fall under the category of developmental disorders. Just a wide
variety of people who have challenges at an early age
and typically have those challenges throughout their lives. But we
do also have one of our speakers is going to
be talking about adult resources and programs that are available
(25:21):
as a age so it's all age groups.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
And I feel like that's something that is not often
talked about, is people who grow who have developmental disabilities
as children, they grow up to become adults, and if
they're not dealt with early, those problems can limit them
in terms of what they're able to do in the future,
as opposed to setting them up with strategies and resources
to be able to better operate in society with all
(25:44):
the other adults exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
So we try to not necessarily target the younger ones,
but we do need the younger teachers and parents of
younger children in there at an early time frame so
that they can start learning those strategies and methods of
how to cope with the different challenges that those individuals
face every day.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And this is mostly behavioral, it's not pharmacologic. In other words,
there's not a lot of discussion of medications. It's more
discussion of how they can strategies to where they can
better navigate society.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Right right, classroom management, home management, just cross settings. How
to deal with the individual challenges that child may have,
whether they're at the home, that grocery store in the classroom,
just thinks that they may whether it's speech, behavior, just communication, social,
all of those topics.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
This is your Point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mountson speaking with Denise Gillespie. And
Denise we mentioned did we mention Mitchell's place yet? No,
I have not, So let's tell me about Mitchell's Place.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
They're also nonprofit and they're going to be providing and
they offer special needs resources. There are people that are
going to come and talk with us and they'll be
talking about managing behaviors, feeding the school age child, and
somebody also who will be helping parents advocate for their
disabled child. So it's just arrange that they're going to
(27:14):
bring their expertise.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And the event is November the fourteenth and it's a
Vestavia Hills Baptist Church. Now for those who are we're
covering the entire state with this program, so we have
people listening in Mobile and Huntsville. Vestavia Hills is near
Birmingham and this would be beneficial to people from anywhere
in the state really who define So even if you
know it's a little bit of drive in if you're immobile,
(27:36):
but it would still be worth it if you're if
you're dealing with children.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Who anyone even across state, and adults.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, who would benefit from this sort of thing. There's
a cost to attend, and I assume that cost. Part
of that is to pay for the speakers, pay for
the space, and also probably there you'll be serving lunch
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Right, right, correct, Yes, there is a price of one
twenty five each. There's a group discount of six for
six or more than registered together, and that goes through me,
So you can find my information on the website and
just reach out to me. Plus there's some information on
how to get to do the purchase orders if you
want to do a purchase order. All of that's on
the website. But it's one twenty five for registration. Now.
(28:17):
We're also open to more exhibitors. We've got quite a
few already lined up. But if there's somebody who's interested
in exhibiting at the conference, again, they can reach out
to me and we can get them registered as an
exhibitor and That information also is on the website which
is Ciccoconferences dot com. That's SECCO Conferences dot com. For
(28:39):
teachers who need CEU hours, those are going to be awarded.
There's six and a half hours that you'll get for
the whole day and also purchase orders like I mentioned before,
those are also accepted if you're an exhibitor and you're
working with the State Department of out with the State Department,
we also accept going through the Stars program, which is
(28:59):
the vendor program through the State Department.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So a lot going on for educators or caretakers, anyone
who wants to try and learn or grow and know
more about this. Denise, thank you so much for joining
us on viewpoint and everyone. You will be there right right.
I will be there, so I'm sure you look forward
to seeing everybody out there at the event. Coming here
to be wonderful November the fourteenth at Veastavia Hills Baptist
(29:22):
Church and the website one more time.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Uh Ciccoconferences dot com, Seccoconferences dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Or put that into Google and I'm sure it'll take
you right there. Thank you so much Denise for being
my guest this week.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
John, you've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs
program from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on
Viewpoint Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management,
or advertisers of this station
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