Stephanie has gone above and beyond for families and multiple teams at ChildServe this past year. I often think of the quote, “If you are going to help, help with a happy heart.” HELP was needed this past year. Stephanie has provided support, help, guidance, and leadership and has done this with a happy heart. Within ABA alone, she has been a primary source of communication for families and staff related to health and safety throughout the pandemic. She has been part of tough conversations and many challenging situations and has handled each with professional grace, partnership, joy, and persistence. She has taken HUNDREDS of phone calls and emails that needed close to immediate assistance throughout weekends, days, and nights. Her dedication to ChildServe and the families we serve is commendable. I feel so fortunate to have Stephanie as part of our ChildServe team and embracing ABA this past year. Thank you, Stephanie!

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Stephanie has worked tirelessly this past year to ensure that we could continue providing community-based services to children and families while reducing the risk of COVID spread and maintaining the safety of children, families, and staff. She helped us carry out our plan to return Group Respite and Day Hab services last summer, after several months without them. Stephanie has made herself available at all hours to answer questions about COVID symptoms and exposures and how to establish return to work/return to service timelines. She has an approachable demeanor and handles her responsibilities across several services with differing requirements and practices. We are lucky to have Stephanie on our team—she is a knowledgeable asset!

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Stephanie is the nurse manager for all community services. She provides support to all locations, including Johnston, Woodland, Ames, and Iowa City. She is amazing! These past 15 months have been incredibly stressful with the pandemic. The community services have had additional complexity with the number of service areas, high volume of remote workers in the community, as well as a range of group services. In addition, we have had regulatory rules through DHS licensing for all Childcare centers, which also includes all of our Day Health locations. These rules included different guidelines for quarantining, and how we look at the family, siblings, and illness throughout the pandemic. With over 250 children in these services, onsite daily, it led to many assessments of children, the potential need for restrictions, and countless hours spent talking with families and staff to ensure everyone was on the same page. She works closely with the COVID team to ensure all areas and services have the right information to share with families and staff. In addition to COVID, Stephanie is the lead for the nursing/clinical component of our Day Health services. The Day Health program saw significant growth this past year, even during the pandemic. She has provided the necessary support for all locations to grow, including Iowa City, Ames, Woodland, and Johnston locations. Stephanie has also been instrumental in working with the team to get our Respite groups back up, after a significant closing of all groups due to COVID. Stephanie has worked long hours, many times involving weekends, to problem-solve throughout the pandemic. She ALWAYS has a smile on her face, always makes the time to support her teams, and never complains. She is amazing and we couldn’t have made it through this past year without her and her clinical expertise. I can’t think of a more deserving individual for this award!