Boyer Children’s Clinic
This month, we are proud to shine a spotlight on Boyer Children’s Clinic, an organization that has been a cornerstone of the community since 1942. As the largest Early Services provider in Seattle, Boyer is the premier resource for children with special needs and their families, offering a broad range of programs that are designed to take advantage of the critical early childhood stage of brain development. The programs are also created to help parents form strong, nurturing relationships with their child and to equip them with the tools to become their child’s best advocate.
Boyer cares for children of all abilities and special healthcare needs, including cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, cleft palate, spinal muscular atrophy, vision impairment, hearing loss, chromosomal anomalies and/or speech/language delays. Boyer’s experienced professionals are leaders within their fields and have expertise in serving the most medically-complex cases.
How Boyer Cares
Boyer provides life-changing services to more than 1,600 children and families each year through the following program areas: physical therapy; occupational therapy; speech-language pathology; family resources coordination, feeding therapy; inclusive toddler groups (with parent participation and typically developing peers); social work services; and medical evaluations (including autism spectrum diagnosis) by their on-staff medical director. Based on the child’s individual needs, Boyer establishes an interdisciplinary team to maximize identification, consultation and coordination of all services. Their highly-specialized, evidence-based programs are designed to address the unique needs of each family.
Boyer also provides specialized services to support children with special healthcare needs that are further marginalized from educational and health equity. This includes special programs such as the CHERISH Program (for children and families in the foster care system), Boyer CONNECT (for children facing homelessness), and the BRIDGE Program (for children up to age 4 at risk of developmental delays). Programs and services are designed to help improve early childhood outcomes for young children with special healthcare needs and equally, to improve systems collaboration between Early Services and other social services (such as the foster care system, homelessness system, and early childhood education systems). Boyer also ensures equitable transitions to the family’s next point of care (Seattle Public School, private therapy, etc).
Their Mission Is Their Guide
Boyer celebrates each child’s unique abilities and embrace their individual needs. Through their high-quality therapy and education programs – strengthened by generous philanthropic donors and community volunteers – they partner with families to ensure they have the support, tools and confidence to help their children thrive, both now and in the future. Boyer ensures all children in need of Early Services receive equitable access to them, inclusive of cultural/linguistic diversity, and regardless of their family's financial circumstances.
Boyer is committed to ensuring that all families can access the life-changing programs and therapies they need. Over the past five years, Boyer has provided over $2.5 million through our Uncompensated Care Program, which is fully funded by generous individual, corporate and foundation donors.
Leadership within the ESIT Community
Boyer is committed to improving the system of services available to children with special healthcare needs and their families. Boyer is the administrative home of the Early Childhood Development Association of Washington (ECDAW) and lead the statewide annual Infant and Early Childhood Conference (IECC), an annual conference that welcomes more than 300 ESIT professionals, parents, and leaders. Boyer’s Executive Director serves as the Chair of the 19 Neurodevelopmental Centers (NDCs) of Washington state and serves on Washington State’s Interagency Coordinating Council Funding Committee for Early Intervention. Boyer also hosts nursing students, therapy interns, pediatric residents, and special educators to gain valuable on-the-job training.
Looking To The Future
For more than 80 years, Boyer has been providing care from their clinics (Montlake and Magnuson Park), in the home, and in the community. Boyer is at a critical point in their organization’s development and facing exponential growth year over year. Since 2019, Boyer has seen a 65% increase in the average number of children served per month. This is largely due to more families seeking services and limited capacity for them within our community—and King County requesting Boyer to take on gaps in services. This has created an urgency for Boyer to meet the emerging needs of the community and remain flexible and adaptable to take on this additional capacity.
As Boyer plans for the future, they will focus on growing and enhancing existing programs, seeking partnerships with other nonprofit/social services agencies to benefit families, as well as exploring the
feasibility of expanding into a third site in South/West Seattle. Generous philanthropic partnerships help make this all possible.
From A Family
While we can share the importance of an organization’s programs and services, nobody can describe its life-changing impact like the clients they serve. Please take a few minutes to watch Maya’s story and see how each day, Boyer changes lives for the better.
To learn more about Boyer Children’s Clinic, please visit www.boyercc.org.
Foundation Pillar: Healthcare
Funded: July 2024