Tides Center

Tides Center, founded in 1996, is a group of nonprofits linked by a commitment to positive social change. One of Tides Center's missions is to promote the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Tides Center accomplishes this mission in part by serving as fiscal sponsor to the project, Conductive Education of Pittsburgh. Every Tides Center project has its own project director and Tides Center's Managing Director delegates responsibility for its' day-to-day operations to the project director. The specific mission of the Conductive Education of Pittsburgh project, which was founded in 1998 by parents of children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, is to increase the physical independence and confidence of children with mobility and self-care challenges in the Western Pennsylvania region. It does this by offering an effective educational program, call Conductive Education. Conductive Education was designed in the 1940s to help children overcome 'learned helplessness' and become independent, creative, challenged and active people who see themselves as self-reliant participants in the world.