OUR STAFF
Our staff consists of experienced tutors and consulting psychologists. Their varied backgrounds range from public and private school teaching experience, to working with exceptional children in various settings in English and in French. Tutors and consulting psychologists confer with parents, teachers and other professionals on a regular basis when required.
OUR STUDENTS
Many of our students have a learning disability. These are bright, intelligent students who may be disorganized or may have difficulty with reading and writing, math or study strategies. In addition, there are many students who feel that extra time to review school work and newly learned concepts in a one-on-one tutoring situation helps them become more successful in school. The Lansdowne Centre provides tutoring for students at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels.
OUR HISTORY
The Lansdowne Centre was founded in 1972 to meet the Montreal community’s needs for an organized professional tutoring service. Its establishment in the Dominion Douglas Church provided a centre in which a common fund of materials and programs could be developed, and where consultations with other qualified people and between the tutors themselves could be more easily arranged. The founders were tutors who had participated in a one semester, weekly seminar given by Dr. Sam Rabinovitch and his staff at the McGill Montreal Children’s Hospital Learning Centre.
In order to serve the entire community, the tutors decided to develop a bursary program. It enabled them to help children from low-income families. The bursary program was made possible by the very successful efforts of a fund-raising committee.
Initially, we worked with 32 children from the many different areas of the city; 6 were given bursaries. Laughlin Taylor, Chief of Clinical and Psychological services at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the then Director of the Lakeshore Learning Centre, guided us in setting up the Centre. Dr. Renee Stevens, psychologist at the Children’s Hospital Learning Centre, became our consulting Psychologist. Dr. Rabinovitch gave us his encouragement and a way of looking at children, which has been central to our effort from the beginning.
In the summer of 1973, the Centre became a Quebec non-profit corporation and was registered as a Canadian charitable organization under the Income Tax Act. This enabled us to issue receipts for donations.