The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see “About TBPF”). The current partner spotlight is Special Care Inc., an Oklahoma City-based special needs care organization that ensures children of all abilities achieve a sense of accomplishment and heightened self-worth.

Special Care, which opened its doors in 1985, provides specialized direct care, education, and therapy services to children with and without special needs. At its inception, there was no other day care or after-school program in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area designed to meet the needs of children with special needs and the needs of their parents.

A three-year, $150,000-a-year Pickens Foundation grant is making it possible for children and families to receive Autistic Behavioral Education Lab (ABEL) services at no additional charge. Special Care's ABEL provides one-on-one therapy for a growing number of children in its program with autism spectrum disorders. All of Special Care's therapists and teachers work together for effective carryover between therapy and classroom environments.

“The Special Care organization offers growth, hope, and inspiration to children and families desperately in need of all three,” Pickens says. “I like to offer support that brings tangible results, and we are very encouraged by what we’ve seen at Special Care.”

Two-thirds of the children participating in its program, accredited by the National Association of Education for Youth and Children (NAEYC) and licensed by the Department of Human Services to serve 135 children between the ages of 6 weeks and 21 years, have special needs due to a wide-variety of conditions, including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, visual and hearing impairments, autism, attention deficit disorders, Down syndrome, and other physical, mental, and multi-disabling conditions. Children following typical developmental patterns comprise the other one-third of Special Care’s population.

“ABEL, initiated in December 2006, has already benefited children in remarkable ways,” says Special Care Inc. executive director Pam Newby. “First words, increased eye contact, improved self-esteem, and appropriate social interaction carried over from the lab into the classroom are just a few of the achievements. We can’t say enough about what Mr. Pickens support has meant to our children.”

Typically developing children and children with special needs learn alongside one another in Special Care's programs, including year-round direct care, early childhood education, and before/after school programs, as well as on-site behavioral, occupational, speech, and physical therapy services. Special Care's classroom management style and social-emotional curriculum utilizes Dr. Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline methods, which are based on current brain research, child-development information, and developmentally appropriate practices.

For more information on Special Care Inc. Oklahoma City, visit http://specialcareinc.org.