"The STAR Center is about solutions," says Margaret Doumitt, executive director West Tennessee Special Technology Access Resource Center (STAR). "Our primary objective is to help children and adults with disabilities achieve their personal goals of independence by providing access to technology for living, learning and working."

Known nationally as a model demonstration, resource and training center, STAR achieves this objective through a number of services, which run the gamut from computer access and academic training for children to high-tech training for the workplace. STAR also offers information and training programs for both the families of people with disabilities and for the professionals who serve them.

"We really want people to know the wide range of services available to them," says Doumitt.

One exmaple is STAR's music therapy program, coordinated by Betty Smith, a certified music therapist, who Doumitt calls "our resident miracle worker." The program addresses the special needs of clients from age 3 to 93. Music therapy helps people recovering from strokes and head injuries by improving their cognitive skills, stamina and dexterity. By singing instructions, the music therapist might help a child with learning disabilities or other special needs focus on certain tasks, develop listening skills and learn academic concepts. Music therapy is also used in numerous other training and therapeutic situations.

Another service of STAR is job placement. "This past year 53 clients were successfully placed in jobs in Madison County," says Doumitt. "One client, Sharon Johnson, wen through STAR's training and placement program and now holds a position as a radiology clerk at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital."

Freddie Mitchell receives instruction from Silas Johnson on how to use a computer loaded with Dragon Dictate software, a voice input system to control the computer so that he can use it at school and at home. This instruction is taking place on the Access Express bus.

Jackie Frye, office manager of the radiology department and Sharon's supervisor, says "Sharon is always willing to go the extra mile. She has the kind of initiative that we wish would rub off on everybody. The program works exceptionally well for our department and continues to be a positive experience."

The Access Express, the first mobile unit of its kind in the nation, offers STAR's programs on-site. After a senior at Jackson Central-Merry High School received a spinal cord injury in a sports practice in 1997 resulting in quadraplegia, the Access Express came to his aid. Collaborating wtih the Jackson-Madison County School System, the student's insurance company and the Shepard's Center in Atlanta, Access Express provided him with assistive technology and training solutiosn for school and independence at home. As a model of effective service delivery and outreach to the community, the Access Express continues to visit the student's home, training him on a voice-activated computer and an environmental control system. Now in its 10th year, the STAR Center traces its beginning to Margaret Doumitt and her husband, Chuck.

When the Doumitts learned that their two youngest children were lsing their sight, this forward-thinking couple put their hope in the possibilities of emerging techonologies. Discovering a lack of training facilities that might open the way to independent living for their offspring, the Doumitts addressed the need head-on. The STAR Center sprang from their determination to change the future, not only for their own children, but for all people with disabilities.

"Chuck and I would have given gold 10 years ago to know there was a resource like this," says Doumitt. "People with disabilities are like the rest of us. They want to learn, work and live independently. That's what STAR is about, and long after we are gone, I believe it will be here, still offering the technology and training that will enable people to do what they want to do."

Some of STAR's other programs include augmentative communication evaluation and training, a low-vision clinic, and independent -living training for people who are blind.

A more comprehensive list of services is available in our Services section.