What Is The San Luis Obispo Child Development Center?

We are a nonprofit community program providing therapeutic interventions to strengthen families for the prevention and treatment of child abuse. We believe that children are best protected and nurtured when families are strong. We have provided child abuse prevention and intervention together with child development and childcare services since 1971 and have directly served over 8,000 children and families in San Luis Obispo County.

We have earned special commendations as an exemplary early prevention and intervention program from the California State Department of Education for our unique “wrap around” child development/mental health and family services, and for outstanding community support and involvement in the program. Our program is based on the direct needs of the children & families and provides services, which meet the Children’s Service’s Networks’ SAFE model for effective and quality programs and in conjunction with the California Department of Education’s (CDE), Child Development Program Title 5, California Code of Regulations.

We provide a special place for children and parents, which have a feeling of family, safety, support, acceptance, and love. We assist families to be successful at work, at school, at home, in the community, and in life.

The SLOCDC works in partnership with families by involving them as the most important people in their children’s lives and basing the program on their needs as well as providing support groups.

Overall they hope to assist families in their efforts to have positive, meaningful, and healthy family relationships.

In addition to our full day therapeutic child development childcare program for children ages 2–5 years, divided among three classrooms, (toddler, preschool and school age,) we also provide a school readiness/transition program for children entering kindergarten, as well as tutoring and similar educational resources for older children enrolled in the Center.  Our case manager serves as a liaison between the school and our families.  The case managers, therapists and teaching team work collaboratively with all educational and community resources to meet the educational, behavioral/mental health needs of our children.

Our professional staff provides family counseling, group & individual play therapy for children, administration of our child nutrition program (which provides 80% of each child’s daily nutritional needs).  Core components of our services to families are: Therapeutic Interventions and Case Management with referrals to other agencies for families to access essential community services; coupled with parent education and advocacy to expand parents’ capabilities to foster the best possible development of their children and themselves.

If you’d like to donate time, items or money for funding, you can find out more information by clicking here

We believe in The Story of the Star Thrower. How making a difference to one child can change the world…

I awoke early, as I often did, just before the sunrise, to walk by the ocean’s edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a child, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt, in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.

As I approached, I sadly realized that the child was not dancing to the day, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night’s tide, stooping now and then to pick up a starfish, and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the child the purpose of the effort. “The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach; they cannot return by themselves,” the child replied. As the child explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach; stretching in both directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth’s plan became clear to me and I countered, “But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference.” The child paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish, and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me, the child simply said, “I made a difference to that one!”

Based on “The Star Thrower” By Loren Eisel