Children’s Village Expansion Deepens Services for Special Kids

With a long-awaited expansion and new community partnerships, Children’s Village evolves to meet the changing needs of the valley’s children.

Making Room and Opening Doors

In the 10 years since Children’s Village began providing services to Yakima Valley children with special healthcare needs, demand has more than tripled and Diane Patterson, executive director, only expects the need to grow.

Yakima's Children's Village Expansion

Thankfully, community support is making an extensive remodel and expansion possible. Current construction will take Children’s Village from 24,645 feet to 37,745 feet, housing additional pediatric medical specialty exam areas, additional speech, occupational, and physical therapy rooms and expanded areas for family support and community services.

“We’re bringing more physicians over from Seattle Children’s Hospital, more specialists,” says Patterson. “We’ve added more speech therapists and are increasing capacity.” While progress continues, the need for support persists. “We have the space now, but we need the professionals and the funding to provide the services,” says Patterson.

Making the most of community talents and resources, Children’s Village has launched exciting partnerships with local organizations. With Children’s Village, the YMCA hosts a music therapy program called Munchkin Music. Partnerships with local schools facilitate programs in several formats, including a collaborative training classroom, a new social skills group, and autism programs. Through a new collaboration with EPIC, a birth-to-three program called Nurturing Pathways will launch in the fall.

Yakima's Charlie being Charlie

On the horizon, Patterson also sees an increase in the range of therapeutic services provided at Children’s Village, “allowing more bridging of modalities,” she says, as well as more collaboration with the school districts to apply the latest research to meet the emotional, social, and behavioral needs of all children with a customized therapeutic program. “Each child is completely different and their program needs to be different,” says Patterson. “No single, set modality works for any child.”

For more information, visit www.yakimachildrensvillage.org.