IHD’s Interdisciplinary Evaluation Clinic has been offering free comprehensive developmental evaluations and treatment recommendations to children and families throughout northern Arizona for over three decades.
The clinic primarily serves children who live in areas with limited or no access to testing and evaluation services, including Navajo and Hopi tribal lands.
Due to the rural nature of northern Arizona, many of the families who attend the clinic must travel long distances to Flagstaff, while also missing school and work obligations. Though the clinic team works with each family to mitigate some of these barriers by paying for gas and a hotel room, some families have additional circumstances that make travel to Flagstaff impossible, such as young children or older adults in the home, limited access to a vehicle, and being unable to miss work or school.
Now, thanks to a Mercy CARES Community Reinvestment Grant, IHD will be conducting two “mobile” clinics on the Navajo Nation for the first time since the program’s inception.
The first mobile clinic will take place in March 2024 in Pinon, AZ, in partnership with the Pinon Unified School District. IHD’s interdisciplinary team of providers will visit the school to conduct on-site comprehensive developmental evaluations for two local families.
The second mobile clinic will take place in Window Rock, AZ in April. This will support access to high quality medical and developmental evaluations for families in need. In addition, providers will have an opportunity to learn about the communities and culture of the Navajo Nation.
About the Interdisciplinary Clinic:
The IHD clinic was established in the 1980s to provide educational evaluations for children in schools. Its services have since expanded into the interdisciplinary developmental evaluations provided today. The clinic team includes a developmental behavioral pediatrician, a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, a social worker, and NAU graduate students from these programs. Students are supervised by experts in their field throughout the evaluation process. Examples of testing that may take place on the day of the evaluation include developmental assessments, cognitive testing, speech and language evaluations, and autism spectrum disorder testing. Treatment recommendations may include counseling, therapy, school accommodations, and in-home accommodations. The clinic social worker is also available to connect families to financial and basic needs resources if needed.
Caregivers who wish to arrange an evaluation for their child may contact Sara Clancey at sara.clancey@nau.edu or Erika Palm at erika.palm@nau.edu to make a referral. Check the clinic’s website for more information as well as dates of upcoming clinics.