About us

The main goal of Käo Support Centre is to offer various welfare and care services for children and adults with disabilities (severe cognitive/developmental and multiple disability).

Considering each client’s cognitive, physical and emotional development, the centre aims to provide a safe and supportive environment where each person is considered an individual, and is regarded as a whole, and create conditions and open up opportunities for individual self-realization. Work in the centre is based on the principle that everybody has a right to participate in everyday life and access activities appropriate for their age and abilities.

Activities offered to adult clients are all based on individual activity plans. The centre also offers organised rehabilitation services and has an established and actively used AAC centre. The centre recognizes that families with children and adults with cognitive disability require practical and professional services in order to cope with everyday life as independently as possible, and that it is important to give parents a chance to attend work while their children remain in a safe environment.

Käo Support Centre has a children’s centre with 40 children with cognitive/ developmental and multiple disability between the ages of 7 and 18 (school age) and 2 adults’ centres. Pae centre for adults is for 52 persons between 18 and 50 years of age. At the day care centre, there are 8 groups with a maximum of 6 persons per group. Maleva centre for adults has 24 persons between 18 and 30 years of age. At the moment there are organized 2 groups with maximum 7 persons per group. Activities at the day care centre are meant to support and empower different abilities (physical, cognitive, communicative, social and everyday skills) of the client to increase his or her ability to cope and participate in everyday life to the fullest extent possible.

A key focus of the centre is to develop skills and knowledge in the area of alternative communication (simplified signs, technical communication equipment, communication books, computer programs and other AAC methods) and to provide consulting all over Estonia in cooperation with NGO Inimeselt Inimesele, the leading organization in that area. Creating opportunities for and developing means of alternative communication are considered a crucial tasks for the centre, to help give everybody a chance for participation and self expression, and there is a strong bias towards putting theoretical knowledge to practical use in everyday life.