Press Release

BURBANK, CA – March 5, 2010 -- Healthcare of Today has announced the acquisition of Immersion House, a bilingual after-school program based in California.

Immersion House currently offers Spanish-English bilingual after school care, combining stimulating, interactive activities for children with language enrichment. While the program currently operates in Spanish/English, Immersion House will be offering additional languages in the near future.

Bilingualism is a hot topic in education, and has captured the attention of parents nationwide. After school language enrichment programs, immersion schools, and bilingual preschools exist and are appearing across the country. However, Immersion House founder Kristi Bliss says ”All too often they [bilingual programs] fall short on ‘the experience’. Understanding words, phrases, and hearing cultural stories is useful – but to really learn a language and its culture, you need to converse with people and be immersed in that target language and culture. Immersion House provides that experience through physical and digital immersive experiences that aid in learning multiple languages.”

Immersion House’s program is a natural complement to the great number of bilingual schools in the Bay Area, where the company is headquartered. Language practice is reinforced through cultural activities, cooking, and other events led by the bilingual staff. The company currently caters to children in grades K-2 and is preparing the next steps of its offerings to children and their families, beginning with a summer camp.

Immersion House has also laid plans for an online component to bilingual education learning. Bliss says this will assist busy parents and caretakers in staying involved in what their children are learning and overcoming the misperception that parents must be fluent foreign language in order for their children to learn it.

Bliss says, “Immersion House is thrilled to become a part of the HOTI family. The breadth and depth of HOTI’s vertical integration strategy and our shared passion for language immersion will enable us to extend the Immersion House teaching facilities and online experience to more children and families so they can truly become bilingual, bi-literate, and bicultural."

CEO Henry Jan of Healthcare of Today says, “It’s impossible to talk about education these days without discussing the benefits of language education. Immersion House is creating a fun, safe environment in which young children not only receive after-school care, but gain the bilingual edge. Our company’s commitment is to provide avenues for a healthy, happy family. High-quality education is an important step in this commitment.”

Healthcare of Today’s other education holdings include Northwoods College, a nursing school based in Wisconsin, and HealthStaff Training Institute, based in Santa Ana, California.

Research suggests a number of advantages to being bilingual including, linguistic and metalinguistic abilities and cognitive flexibility, concept formation, divergent thinking and general reasoning and verbal abilities.