Established in 1979, Institute for Exceptional Children (IEC) is a community-rooted mental health organisation based in Andheri (East), Mumbai. Our work spans schools, families, and community systems, with a focus on making mental health care continuous, contextual, and accessible. At IEC, we combine clinical mental health services, such as counselling, assessments, and psychiatric care, with school and community partnerships to build systems that are aware, can identify, understand, and respond to mental health needs early and effectively. We collaborate with doctors, teachers and other mental health professionals for holistic support to a family’s health and well-being. Since 1979, IEC has reached over 150,000 direct and 50,000 indirect beneficiaries across 75 communities and 500 schools in Mumbai. Direct impact includes providing counselling, assessments, remedial support, and psychiatric referrals to young people; counselling and training to parents; training in classroom mental health promotion practices for teachers. Indirect impact includes sensitizing peers in classrooms, awareness activities with community members and capacity building initiatives with staff and front line workers. These interventions improved mental wellbeing, reduced school dropout risk, strengthened family engagement, and increased early help-seeking behaviour. Our work is grounded in sustained engagement, ensuring that impact extends beyond sessions into meaningful behavioural and systemic change
IEC has collaborated with UNICEF, Larsen & Toubro Public Charitable Trust, ICICI Bank, Live Love Laugh Foundation, Project Mumbai, Projects of CRY & Action Aid, SPJIMR in the past. MCGM, Rangoonwala Foundation (India) Trust, Kotak Education Foundation, Sirat Cleft Foundation, Arpan, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Nirmala Niketan, SNDT University continue to partner with us. These partnerships reflect the trust placed in IEC to deliver integrated, high-quality mental health interventions across diverse settings.
