Special Attention : Disabled: The Jeffrey Foundation gives youngsters a place of their own to play and to socialize. Parents praise the day-care facility for meeting the youths’ unique needs.

Royal likes do the things that every other 6-year-old likes to do.

“I want to play kick ball,” he says.

But interaction with other children has been difficult for Royal. He suffers from a seizure disorder, and in order to protect himself from possible injury he must wear a scuffed white hockey helmet each day.

Children can be cruel, and Royal was reluctant to subject himself to the taunts of others. But now Royal has many playmates, thanks to the Jeffrey Foundation, a private nonprofit organization that offers day-care services to 83 developmentally disabled children. Royal is one of those youngsters.

“Playing with other kids didn’t interest Royal, but at the Jeffrey Foundation he’s learned to play and speak with other children and not shy away,” said Zarte Millard, Royal’s mother.

The foundation serves mostly low-income children who have been diagnosed with autism, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or who are mentally retarded.

But the staff tries to provide more than just baby-sitting, although that in itself is a boon to many parents who have been hard-pressed to find a day-care center to take special children.

“We provide the kids with child care, but they are also learning socialization skills and how to handle their behavior,” said Alyce Keller Morris, president of the Jeffrey Foundation, which she began in 1972 by offering after-school programs for disabled children.

Care is offered Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. for 3- to 6-year-olds and from 2:30 to 5 p.m. for 6- to 14-year-olds at the foundation’s facility on Washington Boulevard. Morris said the foundation plans to start an intervention program for infants 18 months to 3 years old.

“In addition to reinforcing what their schools are teaching them, we are trying to be a link between schools and families because a normal day-care center wouldn’t be able to handle them,” said Nicole Daniels, a program director at the foundation. “Without the Jeffrey Foundation, the parents wouldn’t have anywhere to take their kids. It would be difficult for them to find someone.”

Morris has personal experience with the problems faced by parents of handicapped children. Her son Jeffrey, after whom the foundation is named and who died in 1980 at the age of 16, had multiple sclerosis. When she and her son, then 5 years old, moved to Los Angeles in 1969, she struggled to find adequate day care for him so that she could make a living.

“There wasn’t anything. It was before mainstreaming had taken place, and people were unaware of trying to accept a handicapped child,” Morris said.

For two years Morris tried anything she could.

“I put Jeffrey into a normal preschool program, and what we found is that the other children did not accept him. They would throw dirt on him because he couldn’t react to them in a normalized way,” said Morris.

Finally she decided to find her own solution and started the Jeffrey Foundation. On March 15, the foundation will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Yvonne Styles said she values the foundation for the acceptance her son, Mtima, finds there.

“Kids like Mtima flourish when they’re not teased, and when they’re accepted for what they are. It’s a perfect environment, and I wish society could learn from what I’ve seen at Jeffrey,” said Styles, whose son’s neuromuscular disorder has rendered him speechless.

Styles said her 9-year-old son has attended the foundation’s programs for six years, where he paints, plays sports, and performs arts and crafts.

Many parents said the foundation’s work has helped their families cope with the problems of having a disabled child.

“It allows me not only to work, but to work with other kids who need extra help in the public schools. It also provides time for me to spend with my other two sons,” said Millard, a campus aide at Hyde Park Boulevard School.

Millard’s sentiments were echoed by Maureen D. Keeler, whose 8-year-old son has multiple handicaps, including cerebral palsy.

Keeler said that her son has a “huge impact” on the family, but that the day-care services allow her to pursue a master’s degree in social work at Cal State Long Beach without the difficulty and expense of hiring a private baby-sitter or disrupting the schedules of her three teen-agers.

The foundation also helps parents by sponsoring a monthly support group.

In a typical day, the students might take a trip to the Santa Monica Pier and enjoy playing on the specially adapted play equipment or break into smaller groups and play “animal lotto.”

Six-year-old Jesse said he likes to attend the foundation because it makes him feel “just kinda good” and allows him to play with other children.

For Donald, the foundation has improved his ability to play with other children.

“I like winning and losing,” said the 7-year-old, who concedes that he likes to win more than lose.

Daniels, one of nine on-site staff members who work with the children, said she finds it extremely gratifying to help kids like Jesse and Donald.

“I’ve been with then so long I don’t see their handicaps. I just see them as kids, and once you get past the fact they’re handicapped, they’re just like other kids,” Daniels said.

In the past five years, demand for services by the Westside’s disabled population has jumped, said Mike Danneker, executive director of the Westside Regional Center, a private nonprofit corporation that uses state funds to hook up clients with service providers such as the Jeffrey Foundation.

Danneker said that in 1986 the center provided services for 90 clients in the 3 to 22 age group, but in 1990 that figure rose to 300 and has been increasing since then.

The number of disabled students attending special education programs throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District has also increased, said Wayne Foglesong, a specialist with the district’s division of special education.

In 1986, almost 49,000 children in the birth to 22 age group attended special education programs in the district, but in 1991 that figure rose to more than 59,000, Foglesong said.