We received a donated van from Kid’s Bowling for Kids, Variety Club, and held a Bike-a-Thon to raise money for insurance.

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.

We made our first business five-year plan.

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.

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.

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.

We remodeled the duplex on our property in Forks, changing it from a rental to an Adult Family Home on one side.

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.

To recover from all the cutbacks, we began trying to restructure and capture funding streams from other sources.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.