YOUNGSTOWN — With six children, five of whom have special needs, Jessica Blankenship and her husband, Mark, know about medical costs, in the form of money and time.

“Every child deserves the best opportunity to be the best version of themselves,” she said. “As parents, it’s our responsibility, and we will do whatever we can to make sure they have that,” she said.

When her infant son Corey developed plagiocephaly in 2022, he needed a helmet to help his head reform properly.

At the time, he was receiving treatment services through “Help Me Grow,” a program operated by the Ohio Department of Health. Insurance covered the cost of the helmet, but the repeated trips to Independence for treatment were going to take a toll on the family’s finances too. Blankenship said her representative at Help Me Grow referred them to “Operation Search and Help.”

The program, administered by Shari Nesbitt at Potential Development School for Students with Autism in Youngstown, started in 1974 through a contribution from a local philanthropist, Elizabeth Hine.

According to a news release from the Youngstown Foundation, Operation Search and Help reimburses families with children up to age 21 for expenses related to diagnosed medical conditions, behavioral health issues and other special needs.

“It provides ‘last dollar’ assistance to families who have already exhausted insurance and other community resources. In its most recent fiscal year, the program assisted more than 370 local families,” the release states.

Families are eligible for reimbursement for medication, some medical expenses and equipment, specialized formulas, physical, occupational and speech therapy, supplies and travel to out-of-town medical appointments.

The Youngstown Foundation now funds the organization, and last week provided its largest contribution yet, $1.5 million. The money will help the program expand its services to all of Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

Youngstown Foundation Executive Director Lynnette Ford said the foundation has regularly provided about $300,000 a year to Operation Search and Help during her four years at the helm, and last year increased the gift to about $370,000.

This year’s grant addresses the foundation’s concerns that changes in state and federal funding to programs like CHIP and the ACA may not be meeting families’ needs as effectively.

“We were seeing more than incremental increases in what it costs to cover the conditions these children have,” she said. “Looking just at data from the City of Youngstown alone, the number of households with children suffering from debilitating cases, keeping them out of school, keeping them hospitalized, and we were seeing folks who just did not know about Operation Search and Help.”

Ford said the grant also reflects its commitment to work with other agencies, many of which have brought the needs of local families to its attention.

“We are working with other groups who focus on the health of children and bringing services to them,” she said.

Ford said some programs are as simple as making sure families with infants who cannot breastfeed or use regular formulas know where to find special formula.

Ford said the foundation is working with the groups to study details like children’s ages, conditions and severity, types of insurance, what the insurance covers, and why some families get kicked off their plans because of their children’s conditions.

“The question for us is always ‘how do I provide a high quality of life for children with chronic conditions?'” Ford said. “If it’s supposed to take a village to raise a healthy child, then it truly takes a village to raise a sick one.”

Ford said some of the funds will be used for marketing programs to help inform the community about Operation Search and Help and she hopes it will become a “one-stop shop” for families that have already exhausted other avenues of financial support.

Blankenship said her family could not be more grateful

In addition to Corey, her then-2-year-old, Charlie, was receiving speech therapy through Help Me Grow, but he was not making progress.

“He really was not speaking at all,” Jessica said. Meanwhile, two of the Blankeships’ other children were flagged at school for speech issues. They needed a better option.

“One of the biggest obstacles we encountered was the waitlist. Everywhere we called had a wait list of six months to a year,” she said.

The family started looking at private-pay therapists to get them through until they could get off a waitlist and into a program.

Operation Search and Help paid $500 per child for two years of private treatment while they waited to get into a program at Mercy Health.

Jessica said Charlie is a different boy now.

“He is still a bit delayed, compared to other 4-year-olds, but he is communicating and he’s talking and that’s the important thing,” she said.

Her son Cohen, 7, is on the Autism spectrum, and the program helped provide a “wiggle seat,” which gives him more range of motion while keeping him seated at his desk at home or in school. Caleb, 9, has a condition called strabismus, a kind of eye crossing in which he can see fine enough out of either eye but they do not coordinate. As he looks at one thing with his “good eye,” and sees it perfectly, the other wanders.

“As he was getting older, I could see it was really affecting his confidence,” Jessica said. “I’ve seen a big improvement in him since he started therapy.”

When Corey’s twin sister Coraline could not stop throwing up last year, she needed to spend a week at the Cleveland Clinic, and Operation Search and Help supported the family by covering travel expenses.

The program also covers the cost of the supplements that are so vital to the needs of autistic children. Overall, since 2022, Jessica estimates the program has covered at least $5,000 worth of therapy and travel costs.

On Friday, they were taking one of the children to Columbus to see the Titanic exhibit at COSI. Jessica said they could not afford to do those family trips without the help they receive for the kids’ medical needs.

“I just want to thank the Youngstown Foundation, and Operation Search and Help for everything they’ve done for our family,” she said. “It allows us to say yes to more things that will benefit the kids.”

Ford said the foundation is happy to serve however it can, and will continue to find ways to help even more families like the Blankenships.

“If there are problems that money can solve, those are the easy problems.” Ford said. “We’re also looking into how we can solve the problems that are long-term, but while we’re doing that research, we’re continuing to invest in meeting the needs families have right now.”

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