East River Child Development Center

District Code:

ERC

Region Name:

New York City

Address:

570 Grand Street

City:

New York

State:

ZipCode:

10002

Phone:

212-254-7300

Website URL:

https://eastrivercdc.org/

District Summary:

Organization and Mission

East River Child Development Center (ERCDC) is a not-for-profit educational corporation founded in 1976 to provide a family centered, community based school experience for children and families. As ERCDC grew and matured, it’s mission was refined to focus on servicing children with special needs. ERCDC provides a comprehensive Special Education program delivering educational and therapeutic services in a centerbased multicultural, multilingual environment. Additional services include comprehensive evaluations as well as Special Education Itinerant Services to children in their homes and those attending regular preschools, headstarts and daycare centers. ERCDC believes that the provision of comprehensive, coordinated services to children with special needs should be provided in the least restrictive environment and must be responsive to the individual child and their family.

ERCDC offers educational and therapeutic services to special needs children between the ages of three and five. These services include specialized instruction, speech and language, occupational and physical therapies, social work and psychological support, family outreach as well as monolingual and bilingual developmental evaluations. ERCDC is a New York State Department of Education approved 4410 preschool and is contracted to provide services through the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Department of Education.

East River Child Development Center (ERCDC) is committed to providing young children who have special needs with an educational foundation that will prepare them to achieve to their best potential not only in preschool, but throughout their academic years. ERCDC is a nurturing, educationally rich environment serving a diverse multilingual and multicultural demographic of children and their families. We identify and foster each child’s developmental strengths and interests, while addressing their challenges using research supported clinical and educational methodologies.

Philosophy and Service Expectations

ERCDC uses developmentally appropriate practice within a language-enriched, special education program for young children, who demonstrate delays in communication, processing, motor and social-emotional skills. Our goal is to promote the child’s ability to understand their world, communicate their needs, wants and ideas effectively, participate successfully in group activities, and develop positive relationships with adults and peers. Some specific approaches we use include targeted visual supports, modeling and demonstration, pairing verbal language with direct experience, and teaching positive social skills.

ERCDC will provide high-quality early education, using play-based instructional strategies that are grounded in research about how young children learn. ERCDC programs will:

· Implement a research-based curriculum aligned to the New York State Pre-K Foundation for the Common Core;

· Collect and analyze data using valid and reliable screening and authentic assessment tools to individualize each child’s learning experience;

· Develop a foundation for children’s social emotional learning, and use age-appropriate strategies to promote positive behavior;

· Provide a safe, nurturing, and predictable learning environment that supports children to grow and develop by engaging with a variety of age-appropriate books and play materials, eating nutritious meals and snacks, and participating in daily gross motor play; and

· Use culturally responsive strategies to empower families in their role as the child’s primary caregiver, teacher, and advocate.