Our Story

We created Building Hope for Children, a nonprofit, in order to create a Therapeutic Community Residence in the state of Vermont. Our son Henry has developmental disabilities caused by a genetic mutation that causes him to have severe seizures multiple times a week, frequently at night. When he experiences these seizures we provide intensive care services in our home which often results in one or both of us getting up multiple times a night to manage his seizures. Along with these medical challenges comes certain behavioral challenges stemming from his seizures, including ADHD, autism and intellectual disability, which require that Henry be monitored at all times. Henry is now ten.

While we have had assistance from wonderful personal care attendants over the years, people who love Henry just as we do, we handle the day to day management of Henry’s daytime needs, and nighttime needs, as well as the scheduling of personal care attendants ourselves. All while working and raising our other child. Further, when Henry needs a change of medication, which often results in increased behavioral problems or medical complexities, we have been unable to access services in Vermont. Vermont’s services are set up for either people with solely mental health and behavioral problems or solely medical needs, not both. We cannot access any or residential options in the state of Vermont because Henry has both medical & mental health complexities and none exist in the state to address both of these issues. Based on the lack of in-state options in Vermont, we started to look out of state for options to help Henry.

We do not think families faced with similar difficulties should be forced to send their child out of state to help them. Working hard to keep your child with special health needs safe and well is a full-time job that many parents are faced with. The system will not change unless we build it. All of this led to our founding of Building Hope for Children, our hope to build a therapeutic community residence in Vermont where children like Henry can live in a safe homelike environment with supportive care, while staying close to their families, participating in their family lives, and thriving in their community by attending their day and school programs, while providing the respite their families need.