T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Transportation and Maintenance Director Dalton VanCuren shows how the adult changing table works by placing maintenance staff member Jedrek Sirca on it.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont Harrison Nobel Alliance held its first Tech Assist Expo at the Belmont County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

BHN Alliance Director of Services and Support Administration Amber Cross said the goal of the event last week was to provide information and devices to assist individuals with disabilities in their day-to-day lives.

“We try to look at how people can live as independently as possible,” Cross said. “We want people to live fulfilled lives and be happy and proud of their homes and all that they are doing.”

The event had several items displayed, such as a voice-activated reclining chair, thermostat, curtains, smart toaster, motion sensor toothpaste and mouthwash dispensers, adult changing table, a temperature-sensitive shower head, and countless other devices. The goal is providing technology that will make life easier for people with disabilities.

“Technology is just another support that can improve life for a person with a disability and provide peace of mind for the people who love them,” Cross said.

She added that when people get support from the BHN Alliance, it is usually through either a service support administrator or a community support coordinator, depending on the individual’s needs and age. She added that BHN can get people with disabilities tools to improve their lives in multiple ways. She said that BHN has a recurring levy that can provide individuals with local funding as well as a waiver that is funded through the Department of Developmental Disabilities, which is state and federal funds that are used to pay for items that the person with disabilities needs.

“Basically someone has Medicaid as their insurance and that is how they are enrolled on a waiver. Then those federal and state funds are responsible for a portion of the cost of an item, and then the county itself is responsible for a portion of the cost through the recurring levy,” Cross said.

She added that although Medicaid is what makes people eligible for the waiver, she believes that most individuals that BHN works with don’t need a waiver to purchase most items.

“You can get a lot of these items on Amazon, so we might purchase them out of local dollars just to save that waiver for other needs,” she said.

Cross said that although this was the first year for the expo, she plans to make it an annual event.

“We had high hopes, but I’ll be honest — we had those high hopes but didn’t know how it was going to turn out with it being our first time,” Cross said. “I think we totally crushed what we were expecting and then some. We’ve had providers come, people we support come, we’ve just had people throughout the entire community come.”

She added that the main goal of the event was to open people’s eyes to what devices and technology are available, and she believes the event achieved that.

“You just feel so much better about yourself when you’re able to do things yourself, and that’s what we want people to do,” Cross said.