Providing Social and Behavior Support Since 2001
Our Mission: To help children of all ages strengthen their interactive ability, appropriate behavior and social skills.
The Wanna Play Program was developed as the result of Beth Robert’s experience helping her daughter, diagnosed with Global Developmental Delay and autistic tendencies. As she began to look for programs for her daughter she became discouraged at the lack of focus on social skills inherent to most programs for children. From this she began to run groups as a part of her home program and realized the need for this type of supportive, instructional programming. This lead to the creation the Exceptional Needs Foundation in 2001. As the program and curriculum developed Beth and Ruth began to gather various lessons and printed The Wanna Play Program curriculum in 2007.
The Wanna Play Program is a stepping stone program designed to build on itself, and to be accessible to children of any age. The program incorporates learning the social strategies needed to navigate the world into fun interaction. The foundation of the program is built on the trusting relationship built between facilitator and child. This allows for expansion and risk taking on the part of the child for a deeper and more meaningful interaction to take place. We believe that genuine social interaction requires that a child actively want to be a part of a social relationship and this can only transpire if a trusting and supportive environment exists. It is from this framework that the more direct social instruction can be of benefit.
We begin to move towards social goals in early childhood with the right environment and interactive play. Then, in the elementary age, social development is achieved through concept development and fun games. The program continues forward into middle school with open brainstorming and cool activities.
Objectives
- Use multisensory learning to help children internalize abstract concepts.
- Help children develop a positive approach to social interaction.
- Give children strategies for coping and conflict resolution at home and in school.
- Strengthen the self-concept and self-esteem that teenagers need to be successful.
- Develop the behaviors that are crucial to interact in society in adulthood.
The Importance of Social Development:
Our Core Beliefs
- A child does not need to have a diagnosis in order to have challenges in developing social skills.
- The Wanna Play Program was created to build skills for social success for children of all ages and at all stages of social development.
- A child with social challenges does not learn the skills necessary for successful interaction by simple observation. More direct instruction on how to socially interact is needed in order for them to learn these abstract skills.
- We provide the training to teachers and professionals and instruction to children to encourage success in all areas of social interaction. This team approach is crucial to help any child apply skills learned to all areas of his/her life.