The changes were evident the moment Jennifer Iannuzzi saw her daughter weeks after she joined one of the few full-time residential programs for children with special needs in the state.
“She’s adapted to the routine, bonded with the staff, and is actively engaging with the other kids in the program,” Iannuzzi said of her daughter, Sydney Iannuzzi.
Sydney Iannuzzi, 19, has a rare genetic disorder known as Smith Magenis Syndrome, a non-familial chromosomal disorder that is the result of a missing piece of genetic material within the 17th chromosome. The disorder results in global development delays, and cognitive behavioral issues similar to severe autism.
Sydney Iannuzzi with her brother Cole and her father Christopher at the Hubbard Day Residential Program for students with special needs in Stamford Connecticut.
Her daughter struggles with behavioral outbursts, emotional dysregulation and can have self-injurious behavior, her mother explained. She said her daughter has cognitive delays and requires 24/7 care.
“My daughter was someone that needed this type of round-the-clock support and service to develop and grow and thrive,” she said. “They cultivate a certain culture there that puts the students’ needs at the center. It is a tailored program for the specific needs of each child.”
Ianuzzi said that Sydney needs one-on-one support at all times and a small classroom environment.
Since her enrollment in the Hubbard Day Residential Program in Stamford nearly two months ago, Ianuzzi said her daughter has grown even more independent, sharing opinions with her mother such as liking her cards face down on her desk instead of upright.
“The environment that has been built is really what has helped her,” she said. “She is starting to make real friends with other students in the residential program.”
The residential program follows Sydney’s enrollment in the school’s day program, which was founded by Ianuzzi’s former high school classmate, Jonathan Trichter, in 2020. He was inspired after he learned through Jennifer’s posts on Facebook that Sydney’s school had closed during the pandemic, leaving her in a dire situation.
Jonathan Trichter, founder of Hubbard Day with Sydney Iannuzzi and her two brothers Cole Iannuzzi and Ben Iannuzzi on a visit at the school.
The Facebook posts became a journal for Ianuzzi to share emotions, challenges and triumphs raising a child with special needs.
“Moving forward with residential placement was one of the hardest choices we’ve ever had to make,” she wrote on a recent Facebook post. “But as each day passes, it’s clearer that this is exactly what she needed. She’s been challenged. She’s growing. And she’s doing it all in a place that feels safe and familiar.”
And she grappled with the decision to place her in the program.
“It takes a village,” she wrote on Facebook in July. “And not in a casual, cliche kind of way. I mean a real village. A full-time staff of support. People who each take a shift. People who don’t just drop in, but show up – everyday. The kind of team where the weight of care is shared across many hands.
“So it’s not that I don’t have a shift anymore,” she wrote. “It’s that, for the first time in almost 20 years—I don’t have all the shifts. I love my daughter with a depth that’s hard to describe, and this kind of caregiving—fueled by urgency, panic, trauma, and constant responsibility—is profoundly draining. It is full-body, full-time work that takes a toll over time—on your mind, your body, and your spirit.”
Hubbard Day residential program
The Hubbard Day Residential Program provides 24/7 care for six children since its opening this summer and already has a waiting list.
“We started a small, residential program with six beds and may have additional space for 15 beds by January,” said Trichter, who has opened eight schools for students with special needs across the country. He funded Hubbard Day School himself.
Trichter said such residential programs are rare in the community because the work is challenging, including finding the right space, staff and landlords to support the facility.
Students in the new program attend the regular school program during the day while receiving after-school care around the clock. It’s “24-hour staffing along with on site nursing for behavior support and teaching adult daily living skills, increasing prosocial behaviors and increasing independence among other skills,” according to information about the program.
Trichter said the school allows students to learn in a small, contained environment that really “allows these individuals to feel safe and therefore grow and develop and thrive, which is the ultimate goal.”
Touched by autism
Spending a major part of his career in finance and on Wall Street where he was an investment banker, Trichter became personally touched by autism leading him to open his first school for students with special needs in New York City.
In 2020 he learned of Ianuzzi’s plight concerning her daughter’s school closure.
“She wrote grippingly and at times she tore her vein out and bled on the printed page,” he said. “It commanded attention.”
Ianuzzi told the Courant that watching her daughter 24/7 with no clear answers of where to put her in school was debilitating at times, describing staring at an abyss.
“The boat was filling with water so to speak,” she said. “I was the teacher. The physical therapist. One person to do all the things. It has a ripple effect for the whole family.”
Trichter hired all the staff from Sydney’s previous school, Giant Steps, and opened Hubbard Day in 2020 in Greenwich. It became fully licensed in 2021 as an Approved Private Education Program in Stamford, providing special education services to 90 students with IEPs for severe autism.
In 2023–24 there were 86,942 students in the state with disabilities, which included autism and other conditions, according to the state education site. But fewer than 3,000 students with disabilities in grades K-12 attended APSEPs each year over the past 10 years, according to the education site. Due to the high need for residential program, some in the state draw clients and students from multiple states.
Trichter said the job is rewarding, referring to the kids as beautiful. He said the school is able to help provide them more autonomy and builds independence.
“Helping introduce them to civic society and participate in the human experiment more fully is a gift I treasure every day,” he said.
He added: “I treasure it in the mornings when they walk into school smiling.”
Trichter explained in the same measure it can be heart wrenching to watch students with complex behaviors and needs as they struggle to express themselves and master tasks that are outside of their reach.
Trichter said the job has added meaning to his life.
