Sharon McCarry

Sharon McCarry is President and Executive Director of La Fondation Place Coco and The Little Red Playhouse . She holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and is working towards her Masters. Having held marketing positions in world-renowned companies such as: Reebok, BWM Canada, Rollerblade Inc., Benetton Sportsystem, L’Oreal, Seagram’s, and Mega Bloks, she took her career experience and founded La Fondation Place Coco in 2008. Motivated by lack of services available and the opportunity to take over a defunct parent co-op, The Little Red Playhouse (LRP) was re-launched as an integrated preschool for children who are neurotypical and diagnosed with autism. Having identified a hole in the market, and the need for an academic environment that also offered early intensive intervention services (VB ABA), this model made the LRP a unique facility in Quebec operating in an inclusive fashion. Eighteen months after opening the new LRP, the Foundation was granted charity status, its mission is to support and manage an intervention facility and preschool. Coco’s Place at the LRP is a specific program that was developed to respond to the needs her son Colm, whose nickname is Coco. Colm and a few other first-year children were the inspiration to develop a better program to help children with ASD and language delays succeed through true peer integration. Year after year, the programs continue to improve. Colm attends graduation day every year and encourages the children to be proud of themselves. He addresses all the people in the audience and tells them that if he can succeed, their kids can too! In 2018, the Foundation received permission to start offering programs for people 2 - 20+, and they now offer a Tween camp, as well as working on projects that will develop community living through social housing programs in Quebec that McCarry hopes will be a standard that can be rolled out Nationally.