As part of our Give Back NH series, NHPR highlights small but mighty non-profits doing good work in New Hampshire communities.
Rise for Baby and Family in Keene has been serving the Monadnock region for over 40 years, providing support and specialized services to infants and toddlers with developmental delays.
In this week's Give Back New Hampshire segment, we hear from some of the staff of this early-intervention organization about their mission, and their impact on local families. Below is a transcript.
Transcript
Alicia Deaver (Executive Director): We do what we do because we love children and we love families, and we want to help all children to thrive.
My name is Alicia Deaver, and I'm the executive director at Rise for Baby and Family.
So early intervention or family centered early supports and services, as it's known in New Hampshire, is a service for families with infants and toddlers who either have a developmental disability or who are at risk for a developmental delay. And so we provide home visiting services with our speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, mental health counselors and educators to those families to help their child meet their developmental needs.
Lisa Steadman (Board Member): I'm the parent of an 11 year old with Down's syndrome, and I also serve on the board of directors for Rise for Baby and Family.
My kiddo was a recipient of services from Rise from the time that he was born. We had a Rise home visitor come and spend time with us frequently in our home. That person became like a part of our family, and she taught us all kinds of things that we needed to understand about what it's like to raise a child like Max.
That became very important to me because now, later in life, I'm an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities.
And Rise was really where a lot of that started because parents need other parents. They need to know where to go to get advice. And Rise was a hub for us to help find that support that we needed. So it wasn't just about the home visits and all that we learned from our therapists, but it was also about the connections that were available to us.
Barbara Tremblay: My name is Barbara Tremblay. I'm on board of directors and have been a number of years. I've known about Rise for many years because I'm a former principal and superintendent of schools.
We learned very early on how important it is to do all these services at an early age, not wait till they come into school at kindergarten age. We'd really like to have them before preschool.
Alicia Deaver: There's actually some national research that shows that for every $1 spent in early intervention is $7 saved in the special education budgets.
Rise really thrives off of donations from individuals that help support us. And then we also want to support our staff and having those livable wages. We can't compete with the school districts. We can't compete with the hospitals. And when we're talking about having licensed professional staff, we need to be able to pay them and be more competitive.
You can learn more about Rise for Baby and Family here.
