Worcester Business Journal

6 Worcester Business Journal • August 29, 2016 www.wbjournal.com Preferred Mutual Insurance Company One Preferred Way, New Berlin, NY 13411 It's more than a business. It's a labor of love. www.preferredmutual.com You love what you do. This is part of who you are. So, it helps to have a partner who works with you and knows how to protect what's most important to you. Work, Dream and Live Assured — each and every day. New England Center for Children opens $11M autism institute T he newest addition to the New England Center for Children is easy to spot along Route 9. A three-story building with glistening blue windows and the nonprofit's name etched across the top in all capital letters greets drivers coming in from the west as they head through Southborough. The 33,000-square-foot building is a visual boost for a company that already has worldwide name recognition in the autism services universe. The $10.5-mil- lion John and Diane Kim Autism Institute, opening next month, will house research, professional develop- ment and technology for the center, allowing it to continue to train its work- force, improve its technology and devel- op best practices. The institute, completed with a $2.5 million lead gift from John and Diane Kim, is a physical manifestation of a $10.9-million capital campaign. Remaining funds will be used to reno- vate the center's main building into a state-of-the-art student activities center with an art-and-music room, computer lab, student library and a school store. By expanding, NECC will expand its interactive, cloud-based educational soft- ware system, enhance its busy profes- sional development practices, and con- duct more research in order to better understand autism and teach the growing number of children with the diagnosis. "[The Institute] is a place for us to really continue to create a state-of-the- art program with children with autism on the site, but also to learn what the best instructional practices are for these children, so we can put that into [our technology] and share it with kids out- side of the program," said NECC COO Katherine Foster. $77-million global nonprofit NECC has come a long way since its founding 41 years ago on the grounds of the Taunton State Hospital at an old nurses' residence with six patients. The $77-million nonprofit – still man- aged by founder and CEO Vincent Strully Jr. – employs more than 1,000 people; runs day, home-based, intensive, residential and in-school programs for more than 1,000 children across the autism spectrum aged 14 months to 22 years; operates a second location in Abu Dhabi; and provides on-site continuing education master's and doctoral degrees for its staff, according to NECC. Its software, the Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia, is used by 4,700 students in 24 states and nine countries. All teachings are based on the princi- ples of applied behavior analysis, an evi- dence-based method effective in helping children with autism, Foster said. On Aug. 22, a lower-functioning child was working on data entry at the school's workforce office with his teacher, who BY LAURA FINALDI Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer Jared Bouzan, chief development officer, and Katherine Foster, chief operating officer, outside of NECC's new $10.5-million autism institute. P H O T O / N A T H A N F I S K E

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