A Sioux Falls-area childcare center for medically complex children and young adults is holding a formal groundbreaking Friday afternoon in Harrisburg for a new 5,800-square-foot facility. Uniquely Yours serves people ages 3 to 21 who need sensory, behavioral, medical or communication supports that traditional daycares may not be equipped to provide.
Sarah Parmenter and Emily Bartscher founded Uniquely Yours to address a need they saw firsthand. Both have children with disabilities and backgrounds in special education; they met while earning their teaching degrees at Augustana. The founders’ account of the organization’s development was reported by Sioux Falls Simplified.
The center opened in June, first operating out of Garfield Elementary School for the summer and then moving this fall to Harrisburg United Methodist Church, next door to the construction site. The new building is designed to allow a future 1,200-square-foot addition. Parmenter has said she hopes that space could eventually be used for overnight respite care for parents.
From Care Nights to a Full-Time Mission
Before Uniquely Yours became a full-time program, Bartscher hosted informal Care Nights at her home to give parents of children with disabilities a break. Parmenter’s son Jaiden, who has cerebral palsy, began attending when he was 5. The founders’ early work and the center’s development were described by the outlet.
Parmenter and Bartscher decided last fall to commit fully to developing the center. They describe its role as serving children whose needs exceed what many conventional childcare settings can support, while stopping short of residential care for people with more intensive needs. Many children enrolled at Uniquely Yours had previously been expelled from other childcare facilities, according to the same account.
What a Day Looks Like Inside
The center adapts activities and the environment to each child, using flexible seating, sensory options and communication pages with words and pictures for children who are nonverbal. Bartscher has described the goal as helping children build behavior regulation, independence and communication skills. The organization says its staff training emphasizes safety, dignity, independence and meaningful engagement, according to Uniquely Yours Specialized Care.
Uniquely Yours also provides care on no-school days and early-release days, along with respite care. Parmenter has said families can struggle to find trusted providers who understand children with disabilities. Statewide, more than a third of South Dakota parents of children with disabilities report at least some difficulty finding childcare, and those parents are three times as likely to make a career sacrifice to provide care themselves, according to SD Kids Count.
One Family's Shift From Overnight Shifts to a Normal Schedule
Brittany Lux told the outlet that before finding Uniquely Yours, she took overnight shifts because care was easier to arrange while her 13-year-old daughter slept. She also fielded daily calls from her daughter’s previous childcare center about behavioral challenges or medical questions.
Lux said her daughter is now safe, cared for and able to interact with other children at the center, where she has made friends and had her first crush. “Uniquely Yours has meant going back to a normal 9-5 weekday job,” Lux said, adding that her daughter loves attending.
A Statewide Shortage Behind the Local Need
South Dakota’s overall childcare capacity remains limited, according to SD Kids Count. Licensed or registered childcare and early education supply meets about 64 percent of statewide demand, an estimated shortage of 19,000 slots. Sioux Falls meets an estimated 85 percent of demand but still falls short by about 2,000 slots.
The number of registered family childcare programs in South Dakota fell to 354 in 2024 from 729 a decade earlier, SD Kids Count reports. In 2023, three out of four young children in the state lived in families where all available parents worked. A local rate survey cited by the organization found that parents in Sioux Falls paid an average of $12,400 a year for center-based care or $7,785 for in-home care.
What the data and care rules leave out
Provider counts do not capture every source of care: the South Dakota Department of Social Services says its child-care data exclude many family-home providers who are not registered. The department also says informal or in-home providers generally are not required to be registered or licensed, so licensing figures should not be read as a complete count of family childcare.
Federal guidance says child-care providers should assess children’s needs individually and make reasonable modifications to policies and practices to support their participation, subject to applicable limits, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Separately, a South Dakota Division of Developmental Disabilities guide lists short-term relief for primary caregivers as a respite service under CHOICES waiver services; that does not establish that Uniquely Yours currently offers overnight respite or receives Medicaid funding.
First Fundraiser Set for November
With the new building underway, Uniquely Yours is preparing to launch its first-ever fundraising campaign. The organization's inaugural fundraiser is scheduled for Nov. 13 at Walk Thru Plans in Sioux Falls, where organizers plan to share more about the center's mission and ways the community can support its work.
