Rehabilitation Services Led by Example

It’s not just Bridgette Jones’ words that give hope to her patients and their families at Saint Joseph Mount Sterling—it is her example.

Bridgette, supervisor of Rehabilitation Services, which includes adult acute care therapy and the outpatient pediatric clinic, is a speech therapist who sees mostly children. She was born with cerebral palsy, and has physical limitations that she works through every day.

Like her own mother, parents of a child with a disability are often scared and worried, she said. 

“I feel like I am able to give them hope and I’m able to tell them as parents how my mother tackled that news of me having a disability and not knowing what the outcomes of that might look like as I grew. She always tackled it as, ‘Bridgette, you may not be able to do everything like everybody else, but you can do it.’ I try to share that with all my parents.”

She also tries to steer them toward as much independence as possible for their children.

“There’s just so many positive things that I feel like have come out of my disability,” Bridgette said. “I feel like God gives us all of what we’re meant to carry and He makes good of that. And I feel like that is how I’ve taken what I’ve been given and tried to make good of it.”

Children don’t always want to do the hard work in therapy, she said, so she tells them she has to do hard work, too, to stay mobile and independent. “Our motto here is ‘We can do hard things.’ I always talk about that and relate that to myself. I focus on what each child can do, not what they can’t do yet. This sets the tone for confidence, which is crucial to their progress.”

Bridgette has headed rehab services for 11 years and has been with Saint Joseph Mount Sterling for nearly 16 years. Her passion for providing the highest quality care and leading a team of like-minded pediatric therapists has led to significant growth in staffing, which substantially increased the number of patients served. This contributed to her being named Saint Joseph Mount Sterling’s 2024 Leader of the Year.

The growth prompted a need for more space and materials, so Bridgette applied on behalf of the hospital for a WHAS Crusade for Children grant to meet those needs. The funding, totaling $70,000, enabled Saint Joseph Mount Sterling to make structural changes in the outpatient clinic, creating private, safe and quiet spaces for pediatric patients.

She is proud of her experienced staff, saying they reflect Saint Joseph’s values and the concept of humankindness. “We take the time to understand every child that comes in here. We look at their unique challenges, because every child is different,” she said. “All of the care that we provide is patient and family centered. We work together to achieve the goals that are most important to them and will be most impactful to them in their daily lives. Helping parents to see the possibilities in the midst of disability is very empowering for families—for healing and for growth for their children.”

It makes their day when a little boy with a feeding tube takes a bite of food for the first time, or a mostly nonverbal child tells his mother, “Love you.” 

“Those moments are big moments for us, for our parents, for our families,” she said.

Bridgette’s career was a natural outgrowth of her own experiences: “I was in and out of physical therapy my whole life.” Her goal was to become a physical therapist but as a student working as a rehab tech, she realized her physical limitations. She turned to speech therapy, because, she said, “I still wanted to be part of that rehab world.”

Outside of work, Bridgette has taken up Pilates training, and loves to hike and to travel with her family—husband, Mike, her adult son, three stepdaughters and a dog. 

“I try to keep moving—my worst fear is losing my independence, so I do everything I can to keep that from happening,” she said. “I hope that in the process of that, I share my stories of the things that I do, and that I continue to inspire and give hope to the people in this clinic that see me every day. I just think I’m right where God meant me to be.”