Daily Skiff

The Institute of Child Development received a $2 million grant from the Rees-Jones Foundation, part of which will be used to hire additional staff members, an ICD official said.

Karyn Purvis, director of the Institute of Child Development, said the grant will also be used to create a DVD series called Healing Families. The first installment of the series is scheduled to air on public television in January or February, she said.

Established in 2005 as a Vision-In-Action initiative, the ICD is part of the Center for Applied Psychology within the College of Science and Engineering. It is an outgrowth of the Hope Connection, an organization developed in 1999 by Purvis and David Cross, associate director of the Institute of Child Development.

Purvis said the donation will help the institute to continue providing information to families of at-risk children in North Texas and across the country.

"This gift is an incredible encouragement, and it also ensures that we will have many other hands in our office carrying the work load," Purvis said.

The Rees-Jones Foundation, which has given more than 100 grants to various organizations this year, is a private foundation that was established primarily to benefit the people of North Texas. Founded in 2006 by Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones, the foundation's mission is to provide support and funding for programs that will help improve in tangible ways the quality of life and life circumstances of the people it serves. Foundation grants support work education, health, affordable housing, economic development and human services.

This year, the foundation has also donated $25 million to the Parkland Foundation in Dallas, more than $2.7 million to Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity and more than $2.5 million for Builders of Hope in Dallas.

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