The Emerge Center for Communication, Behavior and Development, which is the first facility to occupy a spot at the University’s Innovation Park located five miles south of the main campus, is slated to open in early to mid-2014.
The Emerge Center, which broke ground Jan. 25, will be utilized by the Baton Rouge Speech and Hearing Foundation, a nonprofit entity that specializes in speech language therapy, hosts integrated autism programs for children and provides audiology services for all ages regardless of ability to pay.
“We’ve outgrown our current space on W. Roosevelt, and so the community demand for our services really has driven us to want to increase access to our services,” said BRSHF Capital Campaign Coordinator Shelton Jones.
The new center will be more than double the size of the current building BRSHF uses, which will drastically reduce the amount of time families wait to receive services, Jones said.
The Emerge Center’s larger space and up-to-date facilities will also allow for a unique kindergarten for children with communication challenges; create opportunities for research and development on communication therapies; and provide more comprehensive audiology services, said BRSHF Executive Director Melissa Juneau in an email.
According to Juneau, the center will service 1,500 to 2,000 people annually.
The decision to open the center in Innovation Park stemmed from the BRSHF’s connection to students who work there and the desire to create “strategic collaborations” with the University, Jones said.
She said the BRSHF employs 30 to 40 student workers from the University each month, and they range from undergraduate to post-doctoral.
Communication disorders senior Gabrielle Burns has worked with the BRSHF for more than a year. She said working there gives her real hands-on experience where she can apply what she learned in class to helping her patients.
“It’s one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had, and that’s why I love it so much,” Burns said.
Burns said working with autistic children and seeing the progress they make each day gives her a sense of making a difference in the community.
“[Students] are a key part of that one-on-one therapy,” Jones said. “They are very important in our classroom settings as they assist our therapists, and that’s how we make the progress we make – because it’s very small class sizes with intensive support from our therapists and student workers.”
Charles D’Agostino, executive director of Innovation Park and the Louisiana Business and Technology Center, said entities in Innovation Park have “a strong linkage and relationship to LSU.”
According to D’Agostino, the Emerge Center is the perfect example of the first building that will set a theme for the whole park.
“That’s what we want, that’s what the park is designed for,” D’Agostino said. “It’s designed to have an independent entity like Emerge come out there and have that very strong connection to the University.”
“It’s one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had, and that’s why I love it so much.”
