Jumping Mouse Children's Center
Project: Long-term expressive mental health therapy for children ages 3–12
Request: $15,000
Jumping Mouse Children's Center provides long-term, expressive mental health services to children ages 3–12 in East Jefferson County, along with support for their parents and caregivers. The goal for 2027 is to serve 95 children and 125 guardians across three locations: Port Townsend, and school-based clinics at Chimacum and Brinnon.
The children served are among the most vulnerable in the community — young people who have experienced loss, abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence, mental illness and substance use.
Long-term play therapy
Young children don't have the language to express their thoughts and feelings. So Jumping Mouse's model gives them different tools: art, dolls, toys and movement, through which they can explore their experiences. Within the safety created between child and therapist, a child can process difficult emotions and discover lasting resolutions and coping skills.
Children come weekly, for as long as it takes them to heal. That's deliberate. In a study of adults diagnosed with mental illness, more than half had experienced symptoms before the age of 12, with early childhood trauma as the primary risk factor. Adverse childhood experiences are directly linked to later substance use, and those problems often become adverse experiences for the next generation. Early childhood is when treatment and prevention work best, and it is precisely when these issues usually go unaddressed.
The work extends beyond the child. Parent education and support helps guardians understand their child's needs and strengthen the whole family system. Additionally, Jumping Mouse trains master's-level therapists through clinically supervised internships, building the region's capacity to treat children at all.
Here are the problems you can help solve
Three gaps define this work. First, economic: affordable mental health care for young children is scarce. Eighty percent of the children Jumping Mouse sees qualify for Medicaid — and most private practice providers in the area do not accept Medicaid. Jumping Mouse turns no child away for inability to pay.
Second, geographic: Jefferson County is large with many rural pockets, and children in remote areas are least likely to have anything accessible. Jumping Mouse's answer is specialized play therapy rooms inside Chimacum Primary, Chimacum Elementary and Brinnon School.
Third, age: mental health resources for very young children are chronically underserved everywhere, not just here.
Jumping Mouse runs consistently at full capacity. It uses a waitlist to create some predictability for families, and has had to close that waitlist for almost a year. If it were always kept open, the organization estimates it would easily reach 100-plus children, with waits stretching into multiple years.
Even with their website stating they are at capacity, over 40 families inquired between January and May of 2026. The clinical director follows up with every one, offering resources and a consultation. The waitlist reopened in June to prepare for increased capacity from September, when three graduate-level interns began year-long training.
What your donation makes possible
Your gift supports salaries, benefits and clinical supervision for the licensed therapists doing this work, which is how Jumping Mouse rebuilds its internship program, retains therapists with competitive salaries, grows its staff, and puts more services into schools.
