When Robbie and his sister were just toddlers their mother’s bipolar disease and borderline personality disorder led her to desert the family. She left the kids alone with their father, who was struggling with his own mental illness and depression. Their grandmother Margaret was worried: “We always were on the lookout for how the kids were being treated. We never saw any signs of abuse but it became apparent that Robbie wasn’t developing.”

Margaret spoke with their father the night before he hung himself in front of his children, and she was the one who found him. He had locked the doors from the inside. “The kids didn’t know how to call for help, and they couldn’t get out,” she says. “They were there alone for a long time.” Robbie was two and his sister was four.

Margaret and her husband John immediately put Robbie’s sister in counseling but were at a loss with Robbie. “He was almost a feral child,” she says.  “He had no words at all and didn’t understand anything we said. He ran into the street without looking. John had to put locks on all the doors and cabinets because he climbed on everything.”

They heard about the Kerr Early Intervention Program from their church, where a savvy Sunday school teacher suggested KEIP. Within two months of his father’s suicide, Robbie started in KEIP and Margaret says it “has been a lifesaver.”

The KEIP teachers believed that the little boy’s behavior problems might be caused by something deeper than neglect and trauma, and test results showed that Robbie had mild autism in addition to sensory neglect and some brain developmental issues. With this knowledge, they were able to design a very individual program for Robbie.

“When all this happened we were in completely new territory,” says Margaret. “Kimberly, the KEIP family therapist, has helped us so much. We had both just retired and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of all these issues. We were struggling to deal with the suicide, our daughter’s illness and raising Robbie and his sister.” Kimberly also spends time with Robbie’s mother, helping her understand that it’s OK to be a non-custodial parent and helping her work on very basic parenting skills that she can use when she spends time with the children.

Robbie is now four and a half. “He has a huge vocabulary,” says Margaret. “He communicates and about 90% of the time, people can understand him very well.”  He’s also taking tumbling classes and swim lessons.  “KEIP is very focused on behavior and they hold the children to high standards. Robbie is understanding the results of his behavior and learning how to control how he acts. His behavior will always present a challenge, but he is learning how to get along with others.”

Robbie has started his last year at KEIP, then he’ll move to a kindergarten for autistic children and then on to first grade. Robbie has made so much progress that he’s now in a play group for autistic children, something that would have been impossible a year ago.

“The program has been a godsend,” says Margaret. “I know that if we had not been there and had not found KEIP, Robbie would have been lost.”