Nurturing a Child’s Social and Emotional Development

WRITTEN BY: SHAILEEN KELLY LANDSBERG

Good Child Transitional Center has come to Orange! An offshoot of the longstanding daycare preschool Good Child Development Center in Milford, the 380 Boston Post Road, Orange location is a center with a specialized focus.

Executive Director Bill Okwuosa, MA, LADC, ATSA is a dynamic professional with a passion for mentoring and a vision to support individuals from birth throughout their lives through the identification of challenges and needs and early intervention to help them maximize potential. He came to Good Child Development Center in 2017 and has led the way to create a strong focus on helping to provide programming to help each child thrive socially and emotionally, as well as educationally.

A Certified Staff

A full spectrum of services is available to children attending Good Child Development Center and Good Child Transitional Center. Each teacher is credentialled, with an Early Childhood Education background, and develops lesson plans for the children in their care. Classrooms are broken down by age and the teacher-to-student ratio reflects the needs of the age group of the children, who range from 6 weeks old to 6 years old. Knowing that physical activity is important for growing kids, there are also indoor and outdoor spaces to run and play.

“We also have educational consultants, nutritionists, a doctor who comes in once a week, and a dentist on call for our students. The building is locked, there are cameras in each classroom, and all our staff receive on-going training in things like CPR and First Aid, safe food handling for our kitchen staff, and more. We are committed to providing for the health, safety, and security for the children who attend,” shared Okwuosa.

Early Intervention

Okwousa’s perspective that a child’s social and emotional development comes first before academics, as well as his experience being the parent of a child with autism, inspired the vision of the Orange campus of Good Child Development Center.

“I live in Orange with my wife,” said Okwousa, and together with her has two grown children and three grown stepchildren. We found out early that my son had autism,” he continued, “and we were able to get the interventions to help him succeed. But what about the children on the spectrum without early intervention?

How can we help them?”

Okwousa set out to develop a novel program, based in Orange, that dovetails with the Milford campus of Good Child Development Center and called it Good Child Transitional Center. This center, focusing specifically on children with autism or behavioral challenges, will serve 25-28 students from 2 years to 5 years of age. He explained, “The center identifies children who will benefit from the program, which uses ABA therapy (Applied Behavior Analysis therapy) and has a very small student-to-teacher ratio and small classrooms and groups. We have a strong focus giving the children the attention they need, and on social and emotional learning that helps each child progress. When we know they are ready they transition to Good Child Development Center for a more academic setting.”

Site Director Jo-Ann Arena, who has been part of the Good Child team for 6 years, shared her enthusiasm for the program. “This is a spot where the children can feel less pressured and in a more specialized school.” She echoed Okwousa in explaining that all staff are certified in the ABA approach, and that the certification benefits each child.

A SECURE SITE

Arena and Okwousa emphasized the security of both Good Child locations, explaining that both are locked, and parents and visitors are buzzed in. There are cameras in each classroom, and Emek Security, which is a security company owned by Okwousa, visits each campus on a rotating basis.

“We provide security to almost all of the synagogues in Connecticut, including the ones in Orange,” said Okwousa of his company, which is based in town, “and Emek Security can be as available as we need for Good Child.”

Good Child Transitional Center is open from 6:45am-5:30pm Monday through Friday. Tuition of $500/week (at the time of printing) includes healthy breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, small classes with studentteacher ratio of 2:1, and all other services. The center is exploring Care 4 Kids to assist with tuition. For information call 203-874-8232, email info@goodchilddevelopmentcenter.com or visit goodchilddevelopmentcenter. com. 