Building better pathways for children: Niagara Children’s Centre welcomed as NOHT-ÉSON partner
At the NOHT-ÉSON’s January Planning Table meeting, partners endorsed the Niagara Children’s Centre (NCC) as a new NOHT-ÉSON partner—an important step toward stronger, more connected supports for children, youth, and families across Niagara.
Niagara Children’s Centre provides services for children living with physical, developmental, neurological, and communicative disorders or delays, using a family-centred lens that spans core clinical rehabilitation and infant/child development supports. As NCC CEO Noella Klawitter puts it, the organization’s focus is simple: “Niagara children and youth at their best… at home, school and in their community.”
The Centre’s reach is significant—and growing. NCC serves around 6,000 children each year and delivers more than 53,000 visits annually through a mix of in-person, virtual, school-based, and community-based supports. Over the past 15 years, the number of children served has increased by 120%, alongside major staffing growth and program expansion. Recent additions include the Infant and Child Development Program—a home-based visiting program supporting families, sometimes beginning right from the neonatal intensive care unit—and an Inclusion Quality Support Program, delivered in partnership with Bethesda (also a recent partner of the NOHT-ÉSON), to strengthen early years and daycare capacity to better support children with complex needs.
For Klawitter, joining the NOHT-ÉSON is about reducing fragmentation and strengthening coordination across the broader health and community system. “One of my biggest advocacy efforts is that children’s services shouldn’t be fragmented,” she said, noting the importance of being connected to the wider health sector to support “good, holistic, wraparound services for children.” She sees the partnership as an opportunity for increased collaboration and “seamless… service pathways for children,” along with clearer system navigation for parents and caregivers who can find the children’s service landscape complicated and overwhelming.
Looking ahead, the partnership is expected to move quickly from endorsement to action. The next step will be connecting NCC into the NOHT-ÉSON’s Planning Table and working groups so that partners can align priorities, share information, and identify practical ways to improve coordination across the system. This will include early service pathway and “system mapping” conversations aimed at making it easier for families to navigate between organizations and sectors, and reducing the silos that can create delays, duplication, or confusion. The shared goal is to strengthen wraparound supports not only for children and youth, but for the parents and caregivers who work hard every day to help them thrive.
Klawitter also brings a deeply personal perspective to her leadership. A former Paralympian who is legally blind, she describes her approach as “seeing potential, as opposed to disability,” shaped by resilience, tenacity, and the examples of people who overcame significant adversity.
Click here to learn more about the Niagara Children’s Centre.
