About G.O.T. Orphans
The G.O.T. Orphans Board of Directors
- Dr. Tara McCormick, OTD, OTR/L: Co-Founder
- Jessica Kenney, OTR/L: Co-Founder
- John McCormick, Director
- Sean Kenney, Director
Dr. Tara Hubbard-McCormick, OTD, OTR/L received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Occupational Therapy in 1994. Tara began her volunteer work with orphans while attending Creighton and started working with the pediatric population in North Carolina. Eventually her thirst for knowledge in pediatric therapy took her back to Creighton University to complete a Clinical Doctorate degree in Occupational Therapy in the year 2000. She practiced pediatric occupational therapy in a sensory integration clinic and a hippotherapy clinic in the North Shore area of Massachusetts for 7 years before opening the doors of her own private practice, The Kioko Center in 2006. Her quest for knowledge and her love for these children keeps her continuing education endeavors unremarkable. Tara has worked with post adoptive families and children for over 15 years and has grown very passionate for the needs of these children and understands the struggles they face with sensory deprivation, over stimulation, and attachment issues and thus has sought out volunteering in numerous orphanages to begin educating the staff and children in these facilities/communities.
She is committed to help each family and child to reach their individual goals and overcome any obstacles they may face. She has volunteered and led service trips to orphanages in the Dominican Republic and Mexico with both Creighton University and her staff at the Kioko Center and volunteered in orphanages in Rwanda.
Jessica Kenney, MA, OTR/L completed both her Bachelors of Psychology at Assumption College in Worcester, Ma and her Master’s of Science Degree in Occupational Therapy at Boston University in Boston, Ma. Her passion for orphanage work began during her graduate studies at Boston University when she participated in a semester-long course work and 10-day trip to an orphanage in Buzau, Romania. In working with her professor, a researcher and in the field of occupational therapy and sensory integration studies, she learned how orphaned children are sensory deprived and highly need occupational therapy services. Jessica began her career working for Children’s Hospital of Michigan where she worked in a pediatric inpatient unit and the neonatal intensive care unit. After a year she moved back to Massachusetts and began working at the Kioko Center, an outpatient pediatric clinic. Here she met, Tara McCormick, the owner, who also shared her passion for working with children with sensory processing disorders, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, families of adopted children and also orphaned children throughout the world. After a trip they both took to Mexico, they returned to the U.S. excited to share their vision for helping international orphanages. They shared a common passion for working with international orphaned children in order to help them reach their highest potential in life through staff education and use of therapeutic strategies.