Making a Difference: Creating time to help…
As a certified occupational therapist who works with special-needs children, Wendy Atkinson loves her work and can’t imagine doing anything else.
“You can’t beat a job where you play with kids all day,” she said with a laugh.
But Atkinson’s work with children isn’t confined to her Cornerstone Therapy Associates. In her spare time — which she doesn’t have all that much of — she:
• Established, leads and trains volunteers for a program called Bridge Builders at her church, Cool Spring Baptist in the Atlee area of Hanover County. The program provides specialized care and attention for children with special needs, allowing their families the opportunity to attend church.
• Founded a community sports program, along with Ed Berenson, for children with special needs, also at Cool Spring.
• Helped set up Friends for Life, a Christian-based social and service organization for young adults with special needs, who had aged out of the Young Life Capernaum program and were about to be left with no place to meet.
• Mentors an 8-year-old girl through Big Brothers Big Sisters. “She’s wonderful,” Atkinson said, “and she filled the void when my daughter (Kathleen) went away to college.”
Atkinson, who lives near Ashland, would seem to operate with a few more than the usual allotment of 24 hours that most people work with. On the rare occasions she does get to feeling a little overwhelmed, she simply remembers the children and young people she has come to know and a favorite quote from a Texas minister and author named Charles R. Swindoll, who has said: “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
“That’s me!” she said. “I like fixing things. That’s why I’m an OT. I like taking a problem and making it not be a problem anymore.”
Atkinson is quick to say she does not do anything alone. People such as her Cornerstone colleague Karen Langley, who helped in programming at Cool Spring; Joyce Hawkins, who helped run things with Bridge Builders when Atkinson’s father was sick; and her friend Sally Craymer, who is a big part of Bridge Builders and Friends for Life.
But Atkinson, others say, brings energy and commitment to everything she does.
“She is such a force in inspiring a community to join her for a worthy cause,” said Kelly A. Smith of Hanover. “She leads by example, and is a roll-up-your-sleeves type of person.
“Wendy has a way of making everyone feel welcome. Her compassion is remarkable, and her enthusiasm is contagious.”
Smith knows Atkinson through her therapy practice — her 6-year-old daughter, Stacylee, has autism — and through the programs at Cool Spring Baptist. Stacylee is non-verbal, but it is “absolutely amazing to watch her interact with Wendy,” Smith said. “They have a beautiful relationship.”
Yet, Atkinson seems to bond with any age. Smith once watched her intercede with a 15-year-old boy struggling to be around a crowd “with her kind and gentle encouragement.”
As a teen, Atkinson volunteered at a camp for special-needs children, fell in love with the kids and made it her life’s work. For almost 30 years, she’s worked as an occupational therapist, specializing in working with children who have autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome and a variety of developmental delays and learning disabilities.
She takes what she describes as a “holistic” approach, focusing on fine motor skills, sensory skills and hand-eye coordination, among other things, trying to teach children (and their families) how they can adjust and function in their environment so they don’t get frustrated and upset.
She also believes therapy is more effective for such children when it’s conducted in familiar settings, so her eight Cornerstone therapists generally travel to the child’s home or school.
Jennifer Barnum of Hanover said she’s come to think of Atkinson “as an extension of our family.”
“She’s not just helping Eli,” Barnum said of her 8-year-old son who has autism, “she’s been such a good help to my husband and myself. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
Atkinson, who already volunteered in family ministry at Cool Spring, was approached by a member of the pastoral staff about eight years ago and asked to develop a program for two children with autism who had begun attending church.
“We don’t know what to do,” Atkinson recalls being told, noting that situation is a tricky one for churches that don’t want to not welcome families but often don’t have the expertise to properly care for such children.
Atkinson set up training for volunteers to provide specialized 1-on-1 attention (and sometimes 2-on-1). The program has grown and now serves special-needs children on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings.
The Rev. Wayne Smith, Cool Spring’s discipleship and missions minister, called Atkinson “the spark that keeps the fire burning” in the Bridge Builders ministry. Cool Spring children’s minister Brenda Kidd described Atkinson’s work as “a blessing to many families in our community.”
Atkinson is gratified to know that families can now attend church together and that the children are able to be part of the church family. She also is gratified by the volunteers — many of them middle school, high school and college students — who have embraced the opportunity to help.
“They’re learning tons of things from me as a therapist, so I’m hoping they’re going into their schools and doing the same thing, understanding these kids who have disabilities … being more accepting and maybe teaching someone else to be more accepting,” Atkinson said.
“It’s making people more tolerant, and making people understand better what families live with. It’s been nice for people in the church to start to understand these kids better as far as how wonderful they are despite some of the behaviors. They bring such an amazingness to your day. You can’t help but love who they are.”
Wendy Atkinson
Cornerstone Therapy Associates