FAIRMONT–Mayo Clinic Health System-Fairmont is offering a support group for families of children with developmental delays. There’s been five informal get togethers since last June with the next one coming up on May 12.

Karyn Riewe, an occupational therapist, said that along with her, a speech therapist and physical therapy assistant have been orchestrating the get togethers.

“We’re not providing any treatment. We just all happen to work in peds (pediatrics) and saw the need,” Riewe said.

She clarified that while they work at and are using the Mayo facility for the get togethers, these are not limited to Mayo Clinic patients.

“It’s community-based,” Riewe said.

Sandy Soelter, a parent educator with Fairmont Elementary School’s Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) program, is also working with the group.

“We came together with her to start this group because we saw the need for families to connect and learn from each other and get resources from each other, especially with kiddos who have developmental delays or are having problems with speech or fine motor skills or gross motor skills or they were born with medical conditions,” Riewe explained.

She added that, especially in a rural area, some of these areas can be missed because there aren’t a lot of resources so they wanted to create a place for parents going through a similar journey to meet.

During past sessions, while the parents meet and talk, their children have done an activity together.

“But our meeting in May is going to be a parent and kid activity together. We’re going to be painting flower pots and making paper flowers to go in them,” Riewe said.

She said not all of the children who have been coming are getting services but that it’s about 50-50 with kids getting services and kids currently not getting services because either they’ve graduated out or do not have a diagnosis.

So far she said they have been averaging about four or five families per session but she hopes to grow it with getting the word out.

“There’s no diagnosis requirement. It’s for anyone who is concerned about how their kid is developing. We just wanted to create a space so they can have their questions answered instead of searching the internet. We wanted another avenue for people to come together,” Riewe said.

Even Riewe said she has learned quite a bit from the parents who have come in so far about different resources available in the county and in the state, including different grants that are available.

They welcome anyone who wants to attend and is willing to make the trip to come.

“I am not aware of any other group like this. We’re open beyond the borders of Martin County,” Riewe said.

The group will next meet at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, May 12 at Mayo Clinic in Fairmont.