Easterseals Birmingham Strengthens Support for Alabaster Families Through Therapy, Advocacy and Community Partnerships
Story and photos by Sarah Owens
For more than seven decades, Easterseals of the Birmingham Area has been a quiet but vital force in Central Alabama, helping children and adults with disabilities build independence and confidence. Its services stretch from pediatric rehabilitation and workforce development to career training and community recreation — but for families in Alabaster, that mission hits especially close to home.
“We cover speech therapy for Alabaster City Schools,” says Easterseals Executive Director Michael Woolley, who has led the organization for the past six years. “We have three full-time therapists in the schools—elementary, middle school and intermediate or high school—and we’re really happy to be involved in that.”
Those therapists, employed by Easterseals but embedded in the schools, work directly with students during the day. “They still work for Easterseals, but they’re in the rehab section, and they work individually, they can work as groups, whatever the therapist, in working with their referral base, decides,” Woolley explains. “They have offices there, and they do our insurance and all that sort of thing. They’re our employees, but we put them over there.”
The connection is also personal for Woolley. His family roots run deep in Shelby County—just next door in Montevallo. “My dad coached football at Thompson,” he says, referring to Paul Woolley, who led the Warriors for two seasons beginning in 1966. “I grew up in Montevallo until the ninth grade. My grandparents lived there. It was just home.”
That sense of home guided him back to Alabama decades later, when his son Zach, 34, was born prematurely in Los Angeles. “He weighed right at two pounds,” Woolley recalls. “He was very, very, very premature. We realized, as many friends as we had out there, you need family.”
When Zach was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age one, the Woolleys found themselves on a journey that would ultimately shape Michael’s life’s work. “You could choose—you can just cave inward, or you can be an advocate,” he says. “So we were advocates for him his whole life and still are.”
Woolley’s decision to step into advocacy marked a turning point in his career. After years working in litigation support, his family’s experience with Easterseals inspired him to get involved on a deeper level. He first joined the organization’s board, and over time, that connection grew into his current role as executive director.
A Full Spectrum of Services
Easterseals Birmingham now serves hundreds of families each year through programs that meet people at every stage of life. The nonprofit provides pediatric rehabilitation, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, feeding therapy and evaluations, along with workforce development for teens and adults that includes job training, individualized career classes and summer internships for high school students.
The organization also supports camping and recreation, including long-time assistance for Camp ASCCA—Easterseals’ accessible camp in Alabama where children and adults with disabilities can “just go be a kid.”
While Easterseals offers a range of therapy and training programs, speech therapy remains one of its largest due to ongoing community need. “There is still such an impact from COVID. It’s unbelievable just how many,” Woolley says. “We actually really focus on speech at [the Pelham] location.”
To make that care more accessible, the organization is also expanding speech services beyond schools and clinics. “It’s really hard on parents,” Woolley says. “Let’s say you live in Montevallo or Columbiana or Calera, and so you’re like, ‘Oh gosh, my child has speech therapy. We need to get them to speech therapy,’ because that really can impact your cognitive abilities. … So, what we’re implementing, and we’re really excited about it, is we’re going into some of the daycare centers.”
For parents juggling long commutes and work schedules, that approach could make all the difference in getting their child the care they need.
Serving Families, Not Just Clients
Easterseals Birmingham is dedicated to ensuring that every family has access to the services they need—placing people above profit. “We are one of the rare therapy groups where no child is going to be turned away because they can’t pay,” Woolley says. “We’ll work with them to get on Medicaid. We will work with them to do what they need to do, but we don’t turn families away.”
When Woolley stepped into the role of executive director, his experience as a parent guided the organization’s mission in a personal way. “We read our vision and all the things,” he says, “but then at the end I added an ellipsis and wrote in ‘and their families,’ because it’s so important to me that we work with the whole family.”
That commitment to serving the whole family extends well beyond therapy. Easterseals Birmingham offers workforce development, job training and career-readiness classes that help teens and adults with disabilities gain independence and confidence. This past summer, the organization placed more than 50 students in local jobs through its Summer Work Program, giving participants real-world experience and new opportunities for growth.
The organization also provides financial literacy classes and opportunities to build social and independent living skills, helping families choose programs that best fit their individual goals. Whether a child is learning to speak, a teen is exploring career options or an adult is preparing to enter the workforce, Easterseals works to empower the entire family—supporting every step of the journey toward independence.
Music as a Bridge
In 2025, Easterseals deepened that holistic approach by partnering with Rooted Music Therapy, a Birmingham-based organization founded by Hannah Oakes, a board-certified music therapist specializing in neurologic music therapy. “Music therapy is using music to reach non-musical goals,” Oakes explains. “Maybe I’m working with someone in their singing, but we’re working on improving their breath support, or with a kid, we’re working on developing their vocabulary.”
Under the partnership, Rooted Music Therapy operates out of an Easterseals’ facility, giving families a local option for services that are otherwise difficult to access. “Our partnership model is where we come in and act as Rooted Music Therapy inside of Easterseals,” Oakes saidys. “People are still paying out of pocket, but we provide them with a discount because they go to Easterseals. They’re providing us with an office space, and we’re providing their clients with a discount.”
Though music therapy is not covered by insurance in Alabama, the collaboration is already making a difference. “We had a little boy from Tuscaloosa whose parents wanted services for him,” Oakes says. “They were able to drive in and meet us there, which was nice, because we can’t drive to Tuscaloosa, and we didn’t have an office space.”
A Legacy of Advocacy and Hope
For Woolley, Easterseals’ mission is as personal as it is professional. His journey from parent to advocate to executive director reflects the same hope he and his team strive to give every family who walks through their doors. “When I was told Zach had CP, I kind of stepped back, like I don’t know what to do,” Woolley says. “It’s not the trip you thought you were going to take when you’re having a baby. But you decide to embrace it. And we have a rich and wonderful life.”
That mindset now drives Easterseals Birmingham’s approach—meeting people where they are, celebrating every small milestone and building programs that give families tools for both today and tomorrow. Through its therapy services, career classes and local partnerships, Easterseals continues to expand what’s possible for children and adults with disabilities across central Alabama.
