Balanced Learning Center

☀️🎉 Looking for a fun way to kick off summer? 🎉☀️

Our friends and community partners at the Greater Fall River RE-CREATION Program⁠ are hosting their Kick-Off to Summer Celebration this Saturday, June 13th, from 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM at Ruggles Park!

Families can enjoy:
🎨 Face painting
🧗 Rock climbing wall
🎪 Carnival games
🌭 Food & beverages
🎉 And much more!

This is a great opportunity to connect with local organizations, enjoy time outdoors, and celebrate the start of summer with the Fall River community.

📍 Ruggles Park, Seabury Street, Fall River
🕛 Saturday, June 13 | 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

We’re grateful for the work RE-CREATION does to create opportunities for connection, recreation, and community for local families. We hope to see you there!

🎓 Congratulations to the Class of 2026! 🎓

Today, we celebrate every graduate and the journey that brought them to this moment. As both a clinician and the proud parent of a Diman graduate, I'm reminded that behind every cap and gown is a story.

Some of you crossed the stage with honors. Some of you crossed it after overcoming obstacles that no one else could see. Some of you took a different path to get here. Every one of those journeys matters.

We know that everyone has a different version of success. Growth isn't measured by grades, awards, or college acceptance letters. Sometimes success is showing up when things feel impossible. Sometimes it's asking for help, trying again after a setback, or continuing forward despite anxiety, depression, learning differences, disability, or life's many challenges.

To all graduates: We hope you carry forward the knowledge that your worth is not determined by your productivity, your achievements, or how closely you follow someone else's timeline. The qualities that make you uniquely you—your passions, creativity, perseverance, kindness, curiosity, and resilience—are what will guide you into the future.

Whether your next step is college, trade school, employment, military service, a transition program, or taking time to figure out what's next, we are cheering you on.

Congratulations, Class of 2026. The world needs what you have to offer.

Congratulations to all of our Durfee graduates today!

Don’t let the learning stop here.

Keep growing. Keep exploring. Keep shining,

The world needs you!

Happy Pride Month from Balanced Learning Center 🌈

At Balanced Learning Center, we believe people should never have to leave parts of themselves at the door.

A person is not just autistic.
Or LGBTQIA+.
Or disabled.
Or a student.
Or a sibling.
Or a parent.

We are all made up of many identities, experiences, strengths, and stories.

When we say we support neurodivergent people, we also support neurodivergent people who are LGBTQIA+.

When we say we support LGBTQIA+ people, we also support those who are disabled, chronically ill, navigating mental health challenges, from diverse cultural backgrounds, and carrying all the other pieces that make them who they are.

You cannot affirm one part of a person while rejecting another.

True inclusion means embracing the whole person.

This Pride Month, we celebrate the many members of our community who live at the intersection of neurodivergence and LGBTQIA+ identity. We honor your experiences, your resilience, your joy, and your right to exist exactly as you are.

Everyone deserves spaces where they don’t have to choose which parts of themselves are welcome.

At Balanced Learning Center, all of you is welcome here. 💜

If you’ve been around awhile, you may have already realized that I’m terrible with keeping up with social media. We get on a steady clip and then we get busy and social media updates fall to the bottom of the list.

For many of you, this is an incredibly busy season. May brings all kinds of endings, transitions, and celebrations and all of that requires our focus and attention. We’ll talk more about what that’s like and ways to provide some support and stability through all of it later this week.

In the meantime, remember to give yourselves grace. We can’t do all of the things, all of the time. Sometimes certain things are going to fall to the side and we have to be ok with that - it allows space for other things to grow.

So take this Sunday - our last day of Mental Health Awareness month - as a reset. Take it as a chance to let go of the expectations that no longer serve you and embrace the ones you set for yourself.

There’s more than one way to do life.

I'll be the first to admit - we are terrible at taking pictures. There's a few reasons for that but one of the big ones is that we spend our time being present and focused with our participants and that's really hard to do if you're also behind the camera lens.

We did manage to capture a few images this week. Our participants were busy building executive functioning skills - planning and organizing and problem solving - communication skills, and teamwork .... all while having fun and making connections.

That’s the thing about our groups. A lot of the growth happens in the middle of the moments that just look like kids playing, creating, laughing, building, or talking. But underneath all of that, there’s intention, support, practice, and confidence growing little by little every week.

We’re really proud of the space these kids are creating together.