Coming to Little Friends nearly a year ago, I’ve had the privilege of meeting a number of people whose lives have been touched by the work done at our agency. Whether it was our Center for Autism, our three schools, our Adult Day Services programs, or our Community Living support, it has been touching to hear the kind words said about what we do.
While our existing programs touch greater than 800 lives per year, one program we used to operate several years ago clearly had a significant impact on the lives of those families we worked with. Years ago, Little Friends had what was known as the Parent Infant Program, or PIP, for short.
The Parent Infant Program was a service provided to families that involved group support for parents of infants and toddlers challenged by developmental disabilities and autism.
The program provided parent counseling, play groups, and, when needed, therapies for younger children. The benefit of being able to participate in a support group was significant and for those participating, our work helped them deal and work through the challenges that came with a child whose needs are different from others.
With this as justification, I’m pleased to announce that work is going on to re-establish the Parent Infant Program at Little Friends. We have received our first donation to begin and support this initiative, and work is underway to launch this later in 2018. While there is work to do, we believe that the efforts to restart this program will benefit our community in the time to come.
There will be more to follow in the time ahead. We’re excited to share this good news!
