Everyone at Project Help welcomes you to our web site. We are pleased that you have chosen to explore the very important work  of helping children and their families

Project Help is an early intervention program that offers services free of charge to families who have very young children with developmental delays or disabilities. The play based learning experiences are provided in a natural-environment, i.e. children who are developing typically. Project Help is the only center based program for very young children with special needs, 6 to 36 months of age, in Rutherford County. It has been in operation for 26 years, becoming an increasingly important part of both the community and MTSU.

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The program offers training for  approximately 300 pre-service education majors each year as well as serving as a rotation site for Motlow State and MTSU nursing students. Goal-directed interventions are implemented using research based methods. The staff at Project Help strives to support families in a variety of practical ways: through work shops, one-to-one interactions, and informal training seminars that focus on specific instructional areas.

650 million people are estimated worldwide as having a disability. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004, there were 51 million people with some form of disability -5 million of whom were children.

We know that at some point an individual with a disability will be a part of many people's lives. As a result, Project Help becomes a place to learn of quality interventions for the youngest members of our community.

Project Help began nearly three decades ago through the work of a woman who has been an advocate of early education and intervention all of her professional life;. Dr. Ann Campbell. She began working with very young children with disabilities while earning her doctorate at the University of Memphis. It was during this time she co-authored A Model for Preschool Curriculum: Project MEMPHIS. This structured intervention program has been replicated and used throughout the country for decades.

During her first years in Murfreesboro, Dr. Campbell recognized the need for a developmental preschool. In 1983, she and another teacher took cardboard boxes full of toys to the basement of MTSU's Campus school for a few hours several days a week, It was here that they met and worked with children who were diagnosed with a disability at a very early age. They became known as the Cardboard Box Ladies.

For the first 15 years Project Help was housed in various open office "spaces" on the MTSU campus. Families brought their babies and toddlers who had delays and disabilities to get the help that they deserved. Parents were also offered a variety of training and support experience; this included one-way transportation, which was crucial during the early years. Even in these limited surroundings, MTSU students were presented hands-on practical instructional opportunities as a part of their teacher-training programs.

Dr. Campbell, working in conjunction with the Christy-Houston Foundation, the United Way, Charity Circle of Murfreesboro, MTSU, and other gracious individuals in the community, acquired the money for the money for the current main building at 206 North Baird Lane which opened in 1997.