Baylor Specialty Health Centers

Our Children's House at Irving (OCHI) has been meeting the needs of children with disabilities and their families for nearly 60 years in the Dallas/Fort Worth community. Chartered in 1951 by a parent advocacy group, it was originally called Helping Hands School for Retarded Children at a time when there was not a place for children with disabilities in the school system.
As society evolved and children with disabilities found a place in the public school system, Our Children's House at Irving evolved from a primary education focus to meeting the needs of working families raising children with disabilities. The mission of OCHI is to improve the health and quality of life for children with special needs, their families and communities through fully licensed and NAEYC-accredited inclusive child care, outpatient pediatric therapy and social services. OCHI is committed to helping children with disabilities achieve and maintain maximum function and independence with minimal intervention, while providing their families with the support and resources they need.

OCHI provides these three services - specialized child care, outpatient pediatric therapy and social services - all under one roof and on a sliding scale fee so that no child is turned away because of the family's inability to pay. For many children born with a developmental disability, by the time they are discharged from the hospital after birth, they have often exceeded their life-time allowable insurance coverage which helps explain why, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, families raising children with disabilities are much more likely to live below the poverty level. The parents are left with the enormous challenges of finding the appropriate therapy treatments, resources to help them meet the special needs of their child, a child care facility able to meet their child's special needs if they need to work and finding a way to pay for all of it. The challenges can be overwhelming.

OCHI helps families raising children with disabilities meet these challenges. More than 250 children with diagnoses including Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism, shaken baby syndrome, spina bifida and other developmental disabilities are treated at OCHI each month by a team of licensed speech, physical and occupational therapists. OCHI provides specialized childcare for children with disabilities with a highly trained group of teachers and a registered nurse managing the program and addressing all medical needs such as administering medications, tube feedings, catheterizations, respiratory treatments and any acute care needs. Most of the children with disabilities in the child care program could not be enrolled in a typical child care program because of the daily medical care they require. For their parents, the child care program at OCHI is critical to allowing them to work and provide for their family while knowing that their child is in a safe, nurturing and learning environment.