Our History
The helping hands of Clallam and Jefferson Counties.
Concerned Citizens History Timeline
1979...
We started a Parent Support group with regular monthly meetings to support each other regarding services for children.
1982...
Funded by Clallam County, we began a preschool for developmentally delayed children ages Birth-to-Three in the basement of the Baptist Church in Forks.
1983...
We received a donated van from Kid’s Bowling for Kids, Variety Club, and held a Bike-a-Thon to raise money for insurance.
1984-1985...
After receiving $12,000 from Clallam County to help start an integrated Childcare/Preschool and $25,000 worth of donations and donated labor, we renovated an old feed store into our first Integrated Sunshine and Rainbows Child Care Center and Birth-to-Three program through the State, now known as ESIT (Early Support for Infants and Toddlers).
1986...
We became Concerned Citizens for Special Children and incorporated under a 501 (c)(3) non-profit status, contracting with schools to teach their special education program for children ages Three-to-Five; our teacher was Susan Staiert. We also had our first employment program participant through West End Outreach; Ramona was our contact.
1988...
After becoming licensed for infant care, we started an incremented pay scale for employees and offered continuing education for employees wishing to learn Early Childhood and Special Education skills.
1989...
We made our first business five-year plan.
1990-1991...
We began the Therapeutic Childcare program and rented two more rooms in ‘the Plaza’ to accommodate the growth.
1992...
We rented our first office in Port Angeles on E 7th St and began an ECEAP program in conjunction with QVSD as the contract holder. We also started a Community Access program in Forks and Port Angeles and worked with Peninsula Community College to bring Early Childhood classes to Forks.
1993...
We became a subcontractor through the County for Early Intervention Birth-to-Three services and hired our first Family Resources Coordinator (FRC).
1994...
We purchased the Plaza at Mill Creek, gave up our ECEAP contract to the school, and took on the ITEIP contract in Clallam County, per their request, moving us from subcontractor to contractor.
1995...
We were requested by Jefferson County to become their Community Access vendor and rented our first office, the Mt. Baker Block Bldg, in Jefferson County.
1996...
Jefferson County requested that we provide Early Intervention services in South County and take over their ITEIP contract. We also purchased a mobile home that we used to start the Teen Center after moving it onto our property and wrote grants to build a 20-foot by 60-foot recreation building after 3 teens died in alcohol-related incidents that year.
1997...
We began serving Personal Care clients in both Clallam and Jefferson Counties.
1998...
We remodeled the duplex on our property in Forks, changing it from a rental to an Adult Family Home on one side.
1999...
Through a contract with Olycap, we began teaching classes including the Fundamentals of Caregiving to Home Care Workers. We also became PAVE liaisons for the state to do training for parents and earned qualifications to teach Parenting Classes and Developmental Therapy (DTORF). Significant technology was added to our infrastructure, including networking the entire agency, and hiring a Technical Support person.
2000...
We received a two-year capacity grant worth $300,000.00 and implemented several new programs, bought a new bus when our old bus burned up in an electrical fire, and lost the Therapeutic Childcare Grant due to Medicaid restructuring and having to replace the carpeting and install new linoleum in the daycare preschool areas.
2001...
We painted all the childcare rooms but suffered some losses this year due to government cutbacks. We lost funding for the Teen Center and our Back-to-Work program for childcare. We also lost the Capacity Grant, the Wage Ladder Grant, Timber Grants, LGIF, funding from the City of Port Angeles, and some of our community access clients.
2002-2003...
To recover from all the cutbacks, we began trying to restructure and capture funding streams from other sources.
2004...
This year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Concerned Citizens! We carried out the extended school year for the school district and remodeled the Adult Family Home, combining both sides of the duplex to accommodate a six-participant program.
2005...
We gained many more protective payee clients, and all of our programs were busy and doing well. We also began planning for employment and guardianship programs and started providing Supervised Visits for children and families.
2006...
In order to move adults with disabilities from Community Access to work, we began putting together Working Age Adult Policy requirements. To service Forks program participants, we applied for emergency DVR (Division of Vocational Rehabilitation) status and then began the process of obtaining County funding for Individual Supported Employment while pursuing a Carf accreditation. We also trained, applied for, and earned the Pathways to Employment contract through both Counties.
2007...
We were able to achieve the goal of contracting with Clallam and Jefferson Counties to provide Individual Supported Employment, reopen the Teen Center, and renovate the half pipe. We applied for Carf accreditation (Chris Christian mentored us to achieve our goals), started the Independent Living Services contract through DVR (Department of Vocational Rehabilitation), and restructured our offices to provide many more DSHS services including a 60% increase in Supervised Visits, Parenting Support, ARS contracts, and Independent Living Services contracts for teens. Our Representative Payee program increased by 50% and our Supervised Visit program by 148% (to include Port Angeles and Port Townsend). At the end of 2007, we moved both Port Angeles and Port Hadlock offices to much better locations and professional settings.
2008-2009...
We painted and upgraded our buildings in Forks, including new signs for all sites and new furniture for the childcare rooms, and built a new playground for the small children. We held Birth-to-Three contracts with all schools throughout both Counties and began Project Search in Jefferson County with the collaboration of the schools. Jefferson County began the Job Club and People First programs.
2010...
Our Teen and Childcare Centers got a new kitchen and we built a new playground for the older children. We also started the Homework Club for after-school students, began offering School-to-Work transition programs in Port Townsend, and rented a second office in Port Hadlock.
2011...
We began offering School-to-Work transition services within the Quillayute Valley School District. In Forks, we networked all the offices and put in new phone systems, which equipped all our sites with a backup server system for the computers.
2012...
We remodeled the kitchen at the Adult Family Home, turned over staff in the Teen Center, and reached out to the community to get more kids involved. Our Personal Care team joined a union, helping them to continue getting health insurance, and changing the training protocol for new and current staff. In Port Angeles, we installed a new phone system.
2013...
The balloon payment for our mortgage was due, but we still had financial success and were able to give a .05¢ per hour annual bonus that year. We also installed Nanny cams in the Daycare and the infant room and room 3 got a ‘face-lift’. Our union negotiations were coming along, we started paying for two staff college credits, got an electronic sign, and our School-to-Work Transition Academy, which parents, students, and schools loved, was doing awesome.
2014...
Health Care Reform started, we got our second three-year CARF accreditation, had carpet installed at the new Family Center, and expanded ECEAP to a full day, but this year was also full of sadness. We lost the DVR program for four months and the Transition Academy in Port Hadlock. In accordance with Union advice, we started a two payroll-a-month system instead of paying once a month. This devastated our cash flow and brought us to our knees. We started looking at grant writing and three new contracts to stem the bleeding of our finances: Independent Living Services, Community Choice Guide, and the Homeless contract. We applied for loans but were refused because of bad cash flow and financials.
2015...
We obtained our first Port Grant and started our Summer Food Program, as partners with Soroptimists, to feed kids in the summer. Our daycare received a Level III rating from Early Achievers, we received a special grant from the county for our Housing Retention program, and had a heat pump installed in the Adult Family Home. DVR pulled out of its slump, we applied for and received several grants, and were still trying hard to recover from our 2014 payroll change. Union negotiations were back again with UW cuts at 50%.
2016...
Marked our eight years (and still going strong) Carf accreditation standing, and we applied for and received a Community Choice Guide grant and an Independent Living grant. We also wrote grants for our leaky daycare roof and a new floor for the Adult Family Home. We split the daycare into two so we could have multiple ages in one room. Our Summer Food program served ~70 children a day and our Adult Family Home was rated one of the highest in Washington State. The Department of Early Learning took over Birth-to-Three, which created some big changes. We lost about 70% of United Way funding and were asked to be a pilot for the Meaningful Day program for the Adult Family Home, giving clients many more community choices.
2017...
We passed our Carf survey again, with very few corrections, and received enough grants to put new siding on the daycare and paint the outside of the offices and the Adult Family Home. 25 of our staff attended our administrative retreat. DSHS allowed us to charge for slots instead of hourly for childcare and we also implemented that with private pay, which made a huge difference in our revenue stream. The Summer Food program was very well attended, our Representative Payee program adopted a new software program, and the changes in our Birth-to-Three services opened the opportunity for us to provide all the services that the school districts provided.
2018...
We served 1,700 clients this year and were able to put a new roof on the Daycare. We started the Community Guide and Engagement program and provided ALL birth-to-three services for eight of the ten school districts, including all therapies. Vocational Rehab was in “order of selection” meaning they will only serve and refer the most challenged clients. We maintained the level 3 Early Achievers rating in Daycare for the 4th year and sadly said good-bye to some long-term employees for the first time.
2019...
During this time, we did not have enough staff to fill hours in any program and our board members started fading out, so recruiting new members became a priority. We started a café with our new modernized kitchen and opened it in July. We started putting most files on our computer servers and increased our line of credit, looking toward more lean years. We had to keep up our property, so we repainted the daycare and traded our wooden fence for a chain link. We also put a new floor in our Adult Family Home and looked for an office space to buy in Port Angeles. Our rent had gone way up and nothing was available to rent, so Linda started thinking about retirement and how to make a good transition and was able to find a building to rent for the Port Angeles offices in the suites on 1601 E Front St. Several programs were losing money, so less rent was a very good thing.
2020...
The year that marked the start of the Pandemic. We took on a student from the school with autism to manage his school year until he could be placed. It was a very big challenge; we managed his school days for two years and finally helped him and his mom move to Port Angeles. We launched ClearCare as a management tool for Personal Care while still working on financial recovery and decided to pull out of employment services in Jefferson County. Linda C, our bookkeeper of 15 years, left in 2019 and came back in 2020. The Pandemic was very hard on everyone, but financially it pulled us out of the red with the PPP loan and its subsequent forgiveness; we were suddenly in good financial shape. We started doing fingerprinting for the State and talked about a generator for the Adult Family Home, for which we then started writing grants for.
2021...
The Pandemic caused a loss of board members, clients, and staff; we struggled with a lack of employees and had difficulty serving clients. Linda continued(s) to pursue her retirement, an assistant was hired to take the ED position after a 2-year transition, and we started the Setworks app for our employment program. Covid created a lot of animosity about masks and vaccinations; the State required proof of vaccination or religious exemption as a requirement to work. We ordered the generator for the Adult Family Home and started offering staff health insurance benefits.