Our Mission
Exceptional Care for Children (ECC) improves the lives of medically fragile children and their families through skilled nursing, transitional and palliative care. We are a haven for healing fragile bodies when improvement is possible, and a refuge for nurturing vulnerable spirits when a cure is unattainable.
The First & Only Pediatric Skilled Nursing Home for Children in Delaware
Located in Newark, Delaware
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.
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Exceptional Care for Children’s Beginnings
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.
Where We Are Now
Today, Exceptional Care for Children 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.