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Children's Institute for Learning Differences 

Description

CHILD's Mercer Island facility is both a developmental therapy clinic serving children 3-18 and an accredited school for children ages 5-17 who need individualized supports.

CHILD has served some of Puget Sound’s hardest-to-serve and most vulnerable children: those struggling with neurological conditions, psychiatric disorders, cognitive impairments, and a broad spectrum of other learning differences. As a result of these conditions, our children struggle to process information, regulate their bodies and emotions, read social cues and interact with others, and ultimately, to learn effectively. Through our educational and therapeutic programs, children with the most complex learning disabilities gain the skills they need to grow academically, gain self-sufficiency, and progress toward a future characterized by greater opportunity.

Mission Statement
The mission of the Children’s Institute for Learning Differences (CHILD) is to provide innovative school programs and clinical therapies that promote social, emotional, and academic development for children with special needs.
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Children's Institute for Learning Differences
4030 86th Ave SE 
Mercer Island 
WA
98040 
(206) 232-8680 

Carrie Fannin 
Managing Director 

Programs

Children's Institute for Learning Differences Programs

Since our founding in 1977, CHILD has grown from a single, small classroom into a nationally recognized leader in social-emotional development through our key programs:
  • Therapeutic Day Schools: CHILD provides two fully accredited therapeutic day schools for children ages 5-17. CHILD delivers a rich academic curriculum tailored to each student’s specific learning difference, in a structured classroom environment with an intensive 1:5 teacher-to-student ratio. This is fully integrated with onsite, school-day Mental Health, Occupational, and Speech & Language therapies to strengthen students’ individual speech and/or motor skills, develop improved anger management and problem-solving capacities, and cultivate self-esteem.
  • Developmental Therapy Services: CHILD provides a holistic spectrum of clinical therapeutic services for children aged 3-18 to ensure that students with complex learning differences are able to develop the emotional, social, physical, and behavioral skills they need to thrive. Delivered by licensed and registered experts in therapies for special needs students, CHILD provides Occupational Therapy; Speech & Language Therapy and Mental Health Counseling to support daily function, communication, and emotional-behavioral skill-building.
  • Professional Development for Educators. CHILD provides training and clinical consultation for educators to strengthen the provision of services to special needs students throughout the region. CHILD’s training model is rooted in our unique methodology, which is informed by research on Sensory Processing Disorders, differentiated instruction, and Collaborative Problem SolvingSM.

Recent Successes and Current Challenges

CHILD’s Board of Trustees and staff have responded to the alarming rise in the number of children with severe learning differences by successfully developing a 10-year strategic plan (2010-2020) to grow our capacity and impact more children with our life-changing services and methods. Key goals of the strategic plan include:
  • Goal 1: Establish a permanent, state-of-the-art facility utilizing best practices in built environments for students with special needs and sensory processing disorders.
  • Goal 2: Expand Developmental Therapy Services, increasing the availability of occupational therapists, speech & language pathologists, and licensed mental health counselors, to make urgently needed services more widely available.
  • Goal 3: Build an endowment to support scholarships for our K-12 day school and Developmental Therapy Services, ensuring access for low-income families.
  • Goal 4: Establish a relationally driven, technology-based training initiative, using video, web-based steams and feeds, and module-based training in multimedia format, to reach practitioners nationally and internationally.

Evaluation


For 34 years, Children’s Institute for Learning Differences (CHILD) has been providing educational and therapeutic programs to our region’s hardest-to-serve and most vulnerable children.

Effective Organization/Proven Success
Programs that see the greatest number of children with learning disabilities are the Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, and Mental Health Therapy.

Within 2-3 years, nearly 100% of the students in the day school program successfully transition to a more traditional setting. Over 90% of the students graduate from high school.

Sustainability
CHILD’s 10-year Strategic Plan (2010-2020) calls for expansion of their program model and service delivery: securing a new home that will allow for expansion of services and a model that can be easily replicated in other locations, and the establishment of an endowment fund that will provide scholarships to families who otherwise cannot afford their services.

Leadership
CHILD plans to increase their board with five new members by March 2012. The current Board of ten has a balance of longtime and recently recruited members. They are working with the Collins Group to guide them through Board recruitment and donor development.

Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:

Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:

DateAmountPurpose
There are no recent grants awarded to this organization.

Financials

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