Bright New Future for Rachel Kay Stevens Therapy Center

By Peggy Reisser

The Rachel Kay Stevens Therapy Center (RKSTC) at UTHSC has a new home in which to continue the caring legacy of its namesake.

The clinic is named for Rachel Kay Stevens, an OT student who died shortly after beginning her training in the College of Health Professions. She dreamed of working with children to help them live better lives. The pro-bono, pediatric occupational therapy clinic is staffed by OT students with faculty supervision and provides occupational therapy services at no cost to children of families that are uninsured or underinsured.

The clinic opened at UTHSC in 2016 in the old Boling Center, which also formerly housed the UTHSC Center on Developmental Disabilities. That building has since been demolished.

The RKSTC recently moved into more spacious quarters on the 5th floor of the 920 Madison Building on the Memphis campus. It shares the space with the Center on Developmental Disabilities, which has two observation and testing rooms in the suite. The main offices for the Center on Developmental Disabilities are located on the 9th floor of the 920 Madison Building.

The new RKSTC space includes a large observation room, where two students can be giving therapy, while supervised by a licensed OT therapist. There is adjoining space for 12 students to observe from behind a large window.

In setting up the clinic initially, OT students, many of them Rachel’s friends and classmates, painted and decorated the walls. A centerpiece of the décor in the old location was a large tree painted on one wall. Handprints of Rachel’s classmates formed the leaves on the tree.

For the new space, the students copied the tree and used a projector to show it on one wall so the old image could be authentically reproduced. That tree of love and friendship is now the focal point of the clinic, decorating one of its primary walls. New students also added their handprints.

Rachel’s parents, Randy and Katrina Stevens of Batesville, Arkansas, sent her signature, which was also projected on the wall and copied. Additional artwork from the original space was copied and painted on the walls of the new space.

Near the friendship tree, a photo of Rachel Kay is displayed on a commemorative plaque that hung in the original clinic, and now, the new one. The walls of the new space are also adorned with brightly colored artwork from the show and sale held annually to raise money for the clinic. Purchasers have bought the art, done by students receiving OT treatment, and have donated it back to the clinic.

The clinic is in operation on the first and third Tuesday of every month from 3 to 6 p.m. In addition to working with children on fine motor skills and behavioral issues, the center provides education for families and teachers on how to help children with special needs.

Through this work, the center offers OT students realworld experience and educational opportunities they otherwise would not have.

“I am just excited to be able to carry on Rachel’s dream for pediatric OT therapy in this new space,” said Anne Zachry, PhD/OTR/L, chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy. “I am thankful for UTHSC being interested in the clinic and providing the space.” She said recently retired Executive Vice Chancellor Ken Brown was very supportive of the clinic and worked to secure the new space.

The RKSTC recently received a $25,000 commitment to help with its operation. The center also received a $25,000 grant from the Urban Child Institute to do outreach and training in underserved schools in the Memphis community.

Since it opened, the RKSTC has cared for 501 pediatric patients. Additionally, 317 OT students have been trained, 488 teachers have been trained, and 240 parents have been served for a total of 1,546 individuals reached by the center.