School District’s Child Find Receives Grant From Retired Teachers Group

Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association-Retired recently provided a grant to the Palm Beach County School District’s Child Find program.

Child Find is a unique branch of the Florida Diagnostic and Learning Resources System designed to serve children with special needs or disabilities by supporting educators, families and communities. This is done by locating, identifying and obtaining services for children who have disabilities or special needs.

The program also promotes public awareness of services for children and youth with disabilities, screens children and youth to determine evaluation procedures, and provides coordination, training and support to assist service providers.

Child Find utilizes parent services, human resources and the latest technology in its mission of helping students with special needs. When Child Find submitted its grant proposal, Palm Beach County CTA-Retired saw the impact that such a grant would have on the children served by Child Find. Therefore, the Child Find team in the central area received a $100 grant to pursue preschool literacy activities in 2015.

The work of Child Find is ongoing, and when the group submitted its application for 2015-16, Palm Beach CTA-Retired and the Florida Education Association were so impressed with the progress of the parents and students involved in the project that another grant has been awarded to continue the program.

ABOVE: Psychologist Arianne Lyons, Case Manager Deborah Ricker, CTA President Dr. Kathi Gundlach, Speech/Language Pathologist Alyssa Estornell, CTA-Retired President Kay W. Brown and Speech/Language Pathologist Gilda Morgan-Williams.