A New Obstacle : Center Helping Developmentally Disabled Children Faces Closure

When her newborn was diagnosed with Down Syndrome three years ago, Tiffany Nurminen became depressed, overwhelmed and scared. Rather than greeting the birth with joy, people behaved as if Erik had died.

Through a haze of tears and confusion, the 23-year-old first-time mother turned to an unusual resource in Orange County: the Intervention Center for Early Childhood.

There, she found a program that provides extensive therapy for developmentally disabled children, but also offers support groups and guidance for their parents.

“I don’t know what we would have done,” Nurminen said. “It gave us the self-confidence to believe in our child and know that we were doing the right things for him.”

This summer, after 16 years spent helping hundreds of children, those who run the program face a different challenge. They are scrambling to find a new location before their lease expires in October.

“We are really desperate,” said Pam Sears, the center’s executive director. “We’ve grown over the past 14 years, so what we need is really unique. We might have to close our doors.”

Since 1982, the center has rented 3,500 square feet of classroom space on Bonita Canyon Drive from the South Coast Community Church, which recently merged with Mariners Church of Newport Beach to become Mariners South Coast Church, a congregation of more than 5,500.

Last month, the new administration said it decided not to renew the center’s lease, which expires Oct. 1.

“As a church, we believe our primary purpose is to be a place that will provide for the needs of people worshiping God and growing in their relationship to God,” said Gary Edmonds, senior associate pastor. “They’ve been good tenants doing great work, but our primary purpose is not to be a landlord.”

Sears said she has had offers to move to a church in Tustin and to an industrial area of Irvine, but both sites were too small to accommodate the current enrollment of 150. Sears is also worried about rent: the current arrangement of $1,600 a month was extremely favorable, she said.

“We’ve gone to the state for additional funding,” she said, “but it doesn’t look like it will be available.”

The center operates on a $650,000 annual budget, Sears said, mostly state funding supplemented by grants and donations. The staff of 18 teachers and therapists help children from birth to age 3, whose disabilities include autism, cerebral palsy, drug exposure and Down Syndrome.

“We’re all very sad,” said Kathie Ollivier, a teacher and behavioral therapist at the center for 14 years. “Most of the staff members have been here for many years, and we wouldn’t be here this long if we didn’t truly believe in it.”

The Intervention Center’s approach to working with the children, their parents and siblings makes it the only facility of its kind in the county, said officials at the Regional Center of Orange County, a referral agency that also distributes state funds for such programs.

If the center closes, parents “won’t have a lot of options,” said Kathleen Lang, senior service coordinator for the state agency.

“This is one of the largest developmental programs in the county, and in South County it is the largest,” Lang said. “‘And the site was perfect, centrally located. They draw people from San Juan Capistrano to Anaheim and Yorba Linda.”

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Lang said other programs operate on school campuses or in the home, but none offer a comfortable environment where families can meet for mutual support and guidance.

“A lot of these mothers are very isolated,” she said. “It’s hard to take a baby anywhere, but especially if the baby has a handicap or feeding problem.”

Lang said that other local resources would become severely strained if the center shuts down.

“School districts are impacted right now, and with all the class size reductions going on, it would not be a good year to ask a school to expand its early development programs,” she said.

Nurminen, now 26, learned through the center to communicate with Erik through sign language, which has shown her that his mental capacity far exceeds his verbal abilities.

Later this month, Nurminen will take a trip to the mountains with a group of mothers she met through the center for some recreational time to talk and share experiences away from their children.

Nurminen said she wonders how she would have dealt with the past few years without the center’s help.

“They have done so much, it’s hard to put into words,” she said. “They give you so many tools, educational and emotional. It’s immeasurable what they’ve done for our family.”