Sharlene Stowers

Sharlene Stowers is the Director of Early Intervention for Grafton Integrated Health Network, and the Local System Manager for the Infant and Toddler Connection of Shenandoah Valley. A graduate of West Virginia University, with a degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology, Ms. Stowers began her journey with Grafton almost 30 years ago as a Speech Pathologist.  In 2010, she found her dream job as the Local System Manager for the Infant and Toddler Connection of Shenandoah Valley.

Ms. Stowers is committed to meeting the needs of the smallest and most vulnerable members of our community. Her passion for substance exposed infants and their families developed as she witnessed a 35% referral increase of substance exposed infants to her program within one year. She has participated in Virginia’s Handle with C.A.R.E Initiative, which developed state wide Plans of Safe Care for substance exposed infants and was also part of the NICU-EI Initiative that created consistent referral guidelines to home base programs of NAS and substance exposed infants from NICUs and hospitals across the state.

A frequent presenter, Ms. Stowers spoke about “Strategies for Helping Infants and Toddlers Overcome Trauma” at the Grafton Symposium in October 2016.  She also presented, “The Substance Exposed Infant- The Next Generation” at the 2017 Creating Connections to Shining Stars Conference. Most recently, Ms. Stowers co-presented a two part webinar titled “Family Centered Care and the Substance Exposed Infant” for the Integrated Training Collaborative through Virginia Commonwealth University with Kelly Hill.