What Encompass is best known for is its work with children and families, particularly low-income families and children with developmental struggles.
Business strategy and innovation probably don’t make the top of the list, and that’s just fine with Nela Cumming, executive director of Encompass. To her, Encompass is its staff, and they are “very, very knowledgeable about early childhood development and developmental therapies, and they love kids. That’s the most important part.”
Don’t think the cold hard analytical business functions are forgotten, though. Cumming just puts them into their rightful place, in serving the organization’s higher priorities.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we’re for every child,” says Cumming, executive director. “If your child has special needs, we’re great at that. If your child is typically developing, we’re still great at that. Anything, for any kind of child, we’re trying to be the go-to.”
Until earlier this year, Cumming herself specialized in early learning for children with developmental challenges, as the director of pediatric therapy. She was named the interim executive director in July, when directory Gregory Malcolm left the organization for an opportunity with Swedish Hospital, and the Encompass board made her role official Dec. 1.
Her career with Encompass has lasted more than seven years, starting with her role as program director in 2010, then director of the pediatric therapy clinic when it opened in October of 2011. In that role, she led the clinic through a major expansion, and was named North Bend’s 2013 Citizen of the Year. Now, she plans to lead the organization into an era of growth in critical areas.
“We are really the thought leaders for early learning in the area,” she said. For instance, Encompass has the only preschool program in the Snoqualmie Valley that is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, she said.
She hopes to expand the preschool program—Encompass currently has three classrooms—as well as their many in-home programs, and notes that the organization is also working with the state on a test curriculum for improving executive function (the parts of the brain involved in impulse control and decision making) for children at day cares and preschools.
The direction, she says, came from her and the board’s work on next year’s $3.5 million budget.
“We looked at really focusing our resources into our core areas,” she said. “We’ve really looked at ‘What does Encompass do best?’ And what we do best is children, young children and their families.
“We either provide the best early education programs for young children in our preschool toddler and parenting classes, or the best developmental therapy for children with special needs.”
Encompass currently serves about 1,500 children in 1,000 families, in some form of education, but it’s not even close to enough, says Cumming.
“The worst thing in the world is to get a kid in preschool, or to get a child in pediatric therapy clinic, at 4 years old, who really could have used our help a long time ago,” she said, “and that still happens.”
“The stats are generally that 3 percent of any birth population will need early intervention,” she said. “Three percent is a lot of the birth rate, and we’re not serving that, in King County.”
They are reaching about 2 percent of the birth rate, she said, and looking to grow it, through strategic planning that will start soon. Many programs are funded through state grants, and early learning is a hot topic at the state level now “thank, goodness,” she says, but programs such as the Birth to Three intervention program haven’t been funded at a level that keeps up with the population growth or the need.
Encompass will also need to look at its use of space soon, since growth is on the horizon at every level. Cumming is absolutely confident in the programs and the need, but she does grimace a little at the thought of funding it all.
“I think it’s a huge responsibility, she said, but I could not love this job more.”
Learn more at www.encompassnw.org.
