Child Development Institute

CDI's mission is to help children reach their full potential by supporting the relationships and environments that shape early development. Joan Maltese, Ph.D., founded CDI in 1995 to address the lack of holistic intervention services for young children. Where intervention services were available at all, they were provided in isolation, with little attention to a child's overall support system. Dr. Maltese and her team sought to design intervention services that would accommodate and respond to children's social and emotional development.
Today, CDI's staff of nearly 100 professionals offers mental health, speech and language, occupational, relationship-based, behavioral and parent-child interaction therapy. Most services are provided in home and community settings, while interventions that require adaptive equipment are offered at our Woodland Hills site. In addition, CDI provides parent-support services, and credentialed training seminars to early childhood professionals in areas such as education and organizational leadership, as well as speech, language and occupational therapy. Delivering 50,000 hours of services to over 300 children and families in the San Fernando Valley each year, we serve children birth through age 5 who have or are at risk for disabilities, developmental delays, or social, emotional or behavioral challenges.

CDI has received accolades from the Los Angeles City Council, our district supervisor and California state senators, as well as recognition as a Center of Excellence in Training for community professionals and agencies by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.