Kids Included Together | San Diego & Washington DC

Kids Included Together does amazing work helping child care professionals to feel prepared to have kids of all abilities in their classroom. I have seen firsthand the benefit for kids with disabilities if they are just accepted into a typical classroom and treated like everybody else. In my son's class, they had a child who was deaf and the whole class learned a little bit of sign language, as well as valuing differences. It was a great experience for everyone.

I am an average citizen. It wasn't until I learned of KIT by supporting my boss, a board member, that I learned of their mission and what they do in the community. It has helped me to have a broader view of the kids in my son's school, the children I encounter in the community and the awesome kid who plays 3rd base in his wheel chair at PETCO's Park @ the Park. Life with KIT is the way it should be. I tell everyone I know about KIT in hopes that we can continually improve the lives and experiences of kids who are differently abled then the 'average' child.

For many years, I've had a great passion for working with groups aiding children, yet when I joined KIT's Board I found myself confronted with the reality that my perception of children with disabilities was off. Children with challenges are not disabled; rather, they have different levels of ability. This realization helped me to connect more closely with KIT's mission of advocating for inclusion and has made me a better Board member.

As an elementary school principal I saw the daily struggle that children with special needs often experienced trying to fit into a school environment. Well meaning adults were not always equipped with the right strategies, language and resources to meet the needs of the children and to support their inclusion in our after school programs. KIT brought in wonderful resources, training and such a positive attitude that they transformed the system beliefs into one of acceptance and proactive inclusion that benefits all children. The staff is never judgmental and provides unconditional support for all.

KIT has such an amazing team! I have never seen such dedicated and passionate employees all focused on one mission.... to increase opportunities for children with and without disabilities to access recreational, child development and youth development programs. This team sets out to do this each day and they knock it out of the ballpark every time! The impact they have on kids and families is remarkable. It is such an honor to work with such amazing people...

Our preschool staff has attended several training seminars lead by KIT staff. We have been served both on site and at the national training location. Seminars are always informative and participatory. Our teaching staff always leaves these classes with several new ideas for directing positive child behavior and providing appropriate sensory environments for young children. As director of the program, I have always found the staff at KIT to be very responsive to our needs and open to making service referrals and on site student observations. Also, annual KIT Conventions provide insight and inspiration to providing inclusion for all ability children. We are delighted to be affiliate members of such a professional organization.

When our County Parks and Recreation Department made a committment to making our programs and services inclusive of all kids with and without disabilities, KIT became our primary source of training and consultative services. The outstanding staff of professionals at KIT are available, supportive and caring. Their training has made a tremendous impact on our ability to bring all our youth participants together in an all inclusive environment.

KIT has been of great help to Positive Action Community Theatre (PACT). We provide inclusive programs, and KIT has helped us understand how to best serve an inclusive group. They have also helped us learn how to best serve kids and teens with autism through our programs. We began as a community theatre and not as professionals working with kids with disabilities. Soon after we opened our doors, families who had kids with autism approached us, and after inviting them in, we realized that theatre is the perfect vehicle to teach life skills to kids with disabilities through the modeling of their typical peers. Inspired, we changed our focus to teaching life skills to kids and teens with and without disabilities through theatre. Through KIT's on-line and in-person workshops at our facility, and at their offices, we have learned much about how best to serve kids with disabilities through inclusive programs. They have always made themselves available to us for advise, and we are very grateful to be a an affiliate of this great organization.

KIT is an excellent resource for training staff on techniques and vocabulary to use with kids. They are truly committed to serving children with AND without disabilities. They have great strategies for including all children in activities.

The mission of KIT is to provide training for staff associated with inclusion programs at out-of-school time programs. KIT's goals are to enrich the lives of all who participate and to increase understanding and acceptance of disabilities as a natural part of life. KIT began in San Diego, CA in 1997 with one center for inclusion of children with disabilities in an active after-school and summer program. During that initial engagement, the KIT trainers and the program's staff realized that inclusion programs provide a great service to families of children with disabilities. For starters, the children thrived in a setting populated by typically-developing children. In addition, their families gained confidence in their children's ability to function well in an inclusion environment. Finally, families of typically-developing children learned that their children were not at risk when engaging with children with disabilities and, in fact, their lives were richer for the exposure and real-time involvement. While inclusion at one site made a huge difference at that site, the goal of KIT quickly shifted to leveraging the learning that occurred at the first site. During the past 13 years, KIT has focused on developing and providing training modules to staff of out-of-school time programs at their sites, via internet-available webiner courses and at KIT's annual Conference on Inclusion directed to those who are staff at the sites. These training courses have won national awards and have become the standard for major corporation and government sties. It has been exciting to see the effect of KIT's leveraging. From one center 13 years ago, since 1997 15,748 children with disabilities have been co-enrolled with 218,1562 typically developing children at KIT affiliate sites; this has amounted to over 795,198 hours of inclusive youth programming. While the numbers are impressive, even more impactful is the look of pure joy on the faces of the children with and without disabilities as they participate in their out-of-school time programs. I shall never forget my first site visit; I was in tears as I listened to the children speak of their joy in being part of an after-school neighborhood program. KIT has built a new model and set a new standard for inclusion training over the past 13 years, one that accelerates the possibility that inclusion works for all direct participants and for their families.