Mission Statement

Helping Hands Center for Special Needs’ mission is to provide collaborative and integrated therapy and educational services directly and supportively to individuals with disabilities and their families. The non-profit Educational and Therapy Center will support the community by providing a means to address educational, developmental, behavioral, and emotional needs through a continuum of research based methods.

The Founding of Helping Hands Center For Speacial Needs

The plans to create Helping Hands Center For Special Needs began in 2004 by founders Erin Nealy and Abby David. Both professionals worked in the autism community as owners of small private practices for many years, and knew there was a strong need in the Central Ohio area for more collaborative services for children with developmental disabilities. Abby and Erin both began treating individuals with autism in the mid 1990’s using principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and knew that there was a need for a center based approach that met the multiple educational, emotional, behavioral, communication, social, and sensory-motor needs of individuals with developmental disabilities.

In 2005, Helping Hands Center opened the non-profit Education and Therapy Center offering group and individualized DTI (Discrete Trial Instruction) classrooms as well as individual and group speech therapy, music therapy, occupational therapy and psychological services. Helping Hands Center employs a staff of more than fifty certified teachers, therapists, psychologists, and ABA instructors who all have extensive training. The center offers trainings for parents and professionals, and has several internship and volunteer opportunities as well.