The natural convergence of the missions of Fairbanks and the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL) at the University of Indianapolis has enabled the formation of a compelling, high impact joint partnership to address the school and learning problems of substance-impacted elementary school children.

Fairbanks and CELL officially joined forces on December 2, 2003 to establish the Substance-Impacted Children and the School Project. Both organizations recognized that a significant number of elementary school age children come to school with both their academic performance and school behavior negatively impacted by their parents' abuse of alcohol and/or other drugs. Some of these children were impacted in utero, others environmentally, and still others experience the deleterious effects of both in utero exposure and the continual environmental effects of their parents' substance abuse.

Fairbanks is a regional nonprofit treatment provider whose mission is focused on helping individuals work the life-long process of recovery from the disease of alcohol and other drug addiction. Fairbanks serves as a resource to improve the well being of addicted individuals, their families, and communities at large by offering hope and professional support through its programs and services.

Fairbanks believes addiction impairs, devastates and destroys lives in every class, every age group, and every neighborhood. Beyond the havoc the disease of chemical dependency creates in families, workplaces and schools, alcohol and drug abuse and addiction contribute to crime, homelessness, domestic chaos and violence, traffic deaths and the unseen injury and devastation to those within its sphere. Most simply, addiction steals hope.

In the spring of 2001, the University of Indianapolis announced it had received a nearly $15 million Lilly Endowment grant to pioneer an innovative leadership center, the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL), to enhance the leadership capacity of all who teach so that they may lead others to learn. Specifically, CELL's strategic goals focus on:

1. The development of effective teaching and leadership models for educators of pre-schoolers through adults
2. Fostering leadership and
3. Nurture and disseminate research into learning and teaching and connect the results of that research with actual learners in diverse settings.

CELL takes the resources of the University of Indianapolis into the community by offering on-site educational programs at schools and developing an electronic information network that will enable educators to share ideas about successful learning programs, announce information on visiting scholars and provide current research by leaders in the field.

The natural convergence of Fairbanks' and CELL's missions has enabled the formation of a compelling, high impact joint partnership to address the school and learning problems of substance-impacted elementary school children.

Both Fairbanks and CELL believe that the future of our families, communities and nation lie in the lives of our children. With the demands of today's world, a child's failure at school is not an acceptable option. Failure at school has been empirically tied to failure at life. Many alcoholics and drug addicts have children, and the impact of their addiction upon the lives of their children has been demonstrated as a potential risk to their children's ability to learn. This is particularly disturbing when considered in the present era which is focused on enhanced student performance and high stakes testing. Neuropsychological deficits, behavioral anomalies, grade retention, depressed test scores and high rates of absenteeism are but a few of the learning and school problems associated with a child who has an addicted parent-all of which also increase the child's risk for abusing substances himself/herself and perpetuating the cycle of addiction.

In some schools where substance abuse in the community is dense, the negative impact of substance abuse not only effects individual children but the school's climate and culture as well. Both Fairbanks and CELL believe that if school transformation and student performance and well being are to be effectively addressed, then the educational plight of substance-impacted elementary school children must be seriously considered and addressed by the best research-informed knowledge and practices.