Early Childhood Program Receives Grant for Therapeutic Classroom
The New Mexico Center of Excellence for Early Childhood Education of WNMU was recently awarded a $50,000 Community Investment Fund grant from the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation. The grant money will be matched by the university and will be used to establish a therapeutic preschool classroom at the Childhood Development Center. A therapeutic classroom is one that is designed to facilitate programs that develop children’s foundational cognitive capacities that underpin all later development, including academic achievement. According to Christina Riddle, Program Director of the WNMU Family Counseling Center, the new classroom will be distinguished by its small class size and staffed by teachers and therapists with special training that has prepared them for the role. The idea for the therapeutic preschool classroom, said Riddle, was “born out of a need that we have identified especially over the last several years.” Citing the pandemic and a world of shifting stressors for...