St. Mary's Child Center is focused on helping young children who are at great risk for a wide range of social, emotional, economic and environmental problems.

The children we serve are between the ages of 3 and 5…very important formative years, yet are too young for the educational system to help, and too old for most early-age programs.

• The children we serve are exposed to severe environmental and emotional stress that has a damaging effect on their ability to learn, socialize and grow into normal happy children.

• Studies have shown that if we can reach children, with a high quality program, before they are 6 years-old, we can make a measurable positive difference in their lives. Researchers have estimated that for every $1 spent on high-quality early education there is a savings of $17 in reduced future intervention costs.

• St. Mary’s Child Center children have a wide range of social and emotional problems, brought about primarily by the effects of their home environments and the extreme challenges their families face.

St. Mary's Child center assists children whose needs are not being adequately met by any other private or public service.

• Children between the ages of 3-5 who are environmentally at-risk are currently “outside the educational services system”.

• There are more than 4,000 at-risk children in the metropolitan Indianapolis area with no other hope. Today we serve 5% of these children. Our goal is to maintain and continue to build the highest quality program and to serve each and every one of these children.

• The majority of our referrals come from physicians and other social service professionals and agencies that see the tragic situations in which these children live. St. Mary’s Child Center is their best and preferred program choice because of our high quality program.

• St. Mary’s Child Center has degreed professionals on staff to provide necessary services to these children and their special learning requirements. We offer a 4:1 child to adult ratio, which allows us to provide unparalleled attention to each child.

• St. Mary’s Child Center even has its own transportation system to ensure that every child gets to school every day.

It costs over $8,000 per year to help one at-risk child through our nationally accredited program (National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)). Today we have 100 at-risk children on our waiting list.