Devereux is extremely proud of its 95 year history of providing outstanding residential services to individuals with special needs. Tens of thousands of individuals have received life-changing care in our residential programs across the country.

Despite this extraordinary history, over the last fifteen years Devereux has increasingly focused on developing additional community-based services because care in the least restrictive, clinically appropriate setting is most respectful of the autonomy and dignity of the individual served. Our experience has also indicated that community care, when done well, can be more cost-effective in many situations. It can serve as prevention or early intervention on the front end, and as a step-down from residential care on the back end. Today, for each one of the twenty-four hundred consumers Devereux treats residentially each year, six to ten individuals are served in an array of community settings, including foster care, outpatient, supported living, wraparound, and in-school services.

As we look ahead, the provision of in-school services is one of our most promising areas for impact and growth. Although the funding will be complex and challenging, the benefits to individual students and society will be enormous. Many of our public schools, especially in urban areas, are clearly struggling - if not failing - in their mission to graduate informed and thoughtful citizens with the skills to succeed in 21st century jobs. Virtually all of our most difficult social problems – including poverty and violence – are directly impacted by this educational failure.

The Federal legislation, No Child Left Behind, promotes and emphasizes academic accountability, an important element of this problem. Unfortunately, it consumes significant local resources without, in any way, addressing the most important problem. The vast majority of today’s teachers do not have either the behavioral or developmental training, or the appropriate support resources, to address the social and emotional health of their students. If the social and emotional needs of students are not adequately addressed, not only will those students not be successful, but their disruptive behaviors will make it difficult for other students in the class to be successful.

Over the last ten years, Devereux has developed two sets of educational programs: one directed at early childhood education and one directed at primary and middle schools. The Early Childhood program is built around a strength-based assessment tool (The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment), which has been administered to well over a million three to five-year olds across the country. This assessment tool is supported by teacher and parent training, and curricular materials to build on the strengths identified and to address indicated needs for social and emotional support.

The primary and middle school program, School-Wide Positive Behavioral Supports, provides developmental and behavioral mentoring for teachers and other school staff to understand how to use behavioral approaches for all students in order to maintain a positive environment in the school, provide targeted interventions for the students most likely to be disruptive, and help in identifying students who will need mental health resources from outside the classroom to be successful.

When teachers are provided with information about why many of the children are exhibiting challenging behaviors, and the real meaning behind the behaviors, they are frequently receptive and eager to receive new tools, training, and approaches to try to engage the children. This results in positive culture change throughout the schools.

Both of these programs have secured significant governmental and private foundation grant funding over the last ten years and have produced very exciting results. Devereux is now committed to promoting a large scale implementation of these programs. Toward that effort, this week Martha Lindsay became Devereux’s Vice President for Product Development. Martha has a very impressive resume as Chief Financial Officer of a major for-profit organization, Chief Operating Officer of a successful start-up, and a long history of successful product development. Martha will quarterback our efforts to further develop and market both these exciting products, as well as other intellectual properties in earlier stages of development.

I am pleased to announce that the Marcus Foundation, under the leadership of Bernie Marcus, a founder of Home Depot, has provided a significant, four-year grant to implement School-Wide Positive Behavioral supports in twelve to fifteen Atlanta public schools. This is a wonderful first step in our effort to expand the use of these important programs.