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Exceptional Care for Children (ECC) is a pediatric skilled nursing facility located in Newark, Delaware that that provides transitional, long term and palliative care to medically fragile and technology dependent children who are between the ages of birth and 21 years old. ECC is the first and only facility of its kind in Delaware and one of very few in this country. As a top-100 ranked nursing home in the United States, this organization takes pride in caring for very inspiring residents and providing them with as normal a childhood as possible despite their medical challenges.
ECC’s founder, Jeannine S. Winsness, RN, MSN, CRNP, recognized that children were surviving medical emergencies at higher rates due to the growth and advancement in the field of medical technology. While the life-saving measures and medical interventions had given children a chance at survival, the community systems and services had not caught up and, as a result, children with advanced medical needs were living in children’s hospitals across this nation. For these children, the chance for a childhood was out of reach.
In the spring of 2004, after careful consideration, the Board of Directors approved a capital fundraising effort. It was with great fortune that Exceptional Care for Children (ECC) found both the facility of its dreams, and a generous benefactor, in very short order. Set within 7.7 tranquil acres, the existing facility was virtually perfect and lent itself well to being renovated into a homelike setting. In November of that year, Exceptional Care for Children purchased its campus in Newark, Delaware.
After raising more than $2.9 million for extensive renovations and working capital, Exceptional Care for Children opened its doors in February 2006 as one of the first facilities in the country to provide transitional, long-term and palliative, or end-of-life care to pediatrics.
Today, ECC is making strides in serving this population of children. ECC seeks to provide this residential opportunity in a homelike environment where more than just the medical needs can be addressed. ECC practices a multidisciplinary approach of caring for the whole child by providing social, emotional and development opportunities through daily therapeutic programming that includes onsite therapy, education, and enrichment therapy.
