The Family Place will no longer be able to accommodate children with extreme special needs in the current school year.

The organization can no longer afford to provide individual Educational Assistants (EA) for those children who require their own full-time EA.

Manager of The Family Place Linda Rudachyk said this was a “heart breaking decision” for the organization to make and that some job losses resulted from the decision.

“For the past two years we have fundraised to provide intensive supports for up to six special, little children at an approximate cost of $15,000 per child,” said Rudachyk. “We can no longer sustain that level of cost.”

The Southeast Cornerstone and Holy Family school divisions have been working to accommodate these specific children into their school facilities for the 2010/2011 school year.

Rudachyk said that although she knows the children will be in good hands at the school divisions she and the staff at The Family Place will miss them and the challenges they presented.

Rudachyk assured that Mini-Go and Tiny-Go would resume, as usual, during the week of September 13.

“Mini-Go remains very alive with 18 children, who are all deemed to have high needs according to such criteria as speech and language, behavioural, social, cognitive and environmental issues,” said Rudachyk.

The first year of The Family Place Playschool will also begin during the week of September 13. The playschool is for all children and takes place from 1 to 3:15 p.m.