Lecture September 7,1988
16/14

      Banquet Presentation
          BY
    C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD
      Surgeon General
           Of the
     U.S. Public Health Service
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Campaign 88

   Surgeon General's Conference
Building Community Based Service Systems
           For
Children With Special Health Care Needs
      Washington, DC
       Sentember 7.1988

This conference, it's banquet, and it's presentation were all part of my activity that began
back in 1982 with the first Surgeon General's Conference on Ventilator Dependent
Children, As I've indicated elsewhere in this archive it blossomed into other national
meetings followed by regional, state, and local follow-ups.

The conference was a huge affair and the banquet was for 1000 people. Dozens of
organizations were represented and for me this overwhelming interest was indeed heart
warming as it was for the sponsors. I ticked off a number of them by category rather than
by name.

The banquet presentation also permitted me to do several things I had wanted to do.
First, was to acknowledge The Kids on The Block. This is a group founded by Barbara
Aiello and they put on a presentation with puppets. The purpose of The Kids on The
Block is to teach normal children that they have to be tolerant of and extend themselves
to take special care of children with special needs. I had worked with these folks for most
of the time I was in Washington and one of their puppets, standing about 3 feet tall, was
the Surgeon General in summer white uniform. Many times when The Kids on The
Block were making a presentation I joined the puppeteers, was the Surgeon General's
voice, and manipulated the puppet to give fatherly advice and admonitions to children
who came in contact with children with special needs. I acknowledged and thanked them
for their service to children and especially for their performance that night,

I then honored three individuals with the highest award that a Surgeon General can give;
they were Merle McPherson, Phillis McGrab, and Earl Brewer. These three had been of
help to me in many ways in reference to special needs children but they were also my
European travel companions as we previously had explored, community-based health
services for special needs children in England and the Netherlands.


The rest of the time I had before the microphone I used to summarize the progress we had
made in care of children with special needs from that first 1982 conference through a
number of steps over the years, recounting some of studies that we had done to show that
a comprehensive, coordinated approach to care was cost effective. We really can control
cost while ensuring quality of service. I then asked some questions such as who are
children with special needs and why build community-based service systems? I talked
about the role of health in a community-based system, and then tried to pull it all together
at the end showing how what we did could not be done without the commitment and
determination of all the children, families, government officials, and providers that
brought us as far as we've come.

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