Augusta and Richmond County share one consolidated city-county government, so the public doors families need — the health department's early-intervention line, the school system's Child Find office — are organized by county rather than by city hall. A large share of Augusta-area families actually live just across the line in Columbia County, so this guide covers both districts' contacts rather than Richmond County alone.

This is a lighter research pass than our largest-city guides: every phone number, program name, and link below was checked against the organization's own page this year, but the list below covers the core early-intervention, school, evaluation, and waiver doors rather than a full survey of every private provider in the CSRA.

Statewide programs, numbers, and rights are on the Georgia page. This page adds the local entry points that are specific to Augusta metro (Richmond & Columbia counties).

Early intervention under 3: Babies Can't Wait (Georgia's Part C early intervention program)

Babies Can't Wait covers children from birth up to their third birthday, and in Richmond County the front door is the health department's Children 1st line rather than a pediatrician's office — any adult who knows the child, including a parent, grandparent, or teacher, can place the referral, and the intake evaluation itself is free no matter your insurance status. Reach Richmond County Children 1st at 706-667-4757. Once a child is enrolled, ongoing therapy visits are billed on a sliding scale after insurance or Medicaid is applied, and the state's own family guide states that a household found unable to pay still keeps its services. Families across the river or the county line in Columbia County should ask Children 1st to route them to their own county's office, since Babies Can't Wait assigns cases by county of residence, not by school district. Near a child's third birthday, a transition meeting hands the case to the school system, which applies its own, separate eligibility standard.

• Babies Can't Wait (Georgia's Part C early intervention program)
• Referral phone: 1-888-651-8224 (state Babies Can't Wait office) · 706-667-4757 (Richmond County Children 1st)

New to early intervention? Read the plain-language guide first.

School districts and special education

Georgia law requires every school system, including Richmond County and Columbia County, to actively look for and evaluate children who may need special education, at no charge, from birth through age 21 — a duty called Child Find that reaches children in private school and those being homeschooled inside district lines too. Start the process by putting an evaluation request in writing to your child's school or the district's special education office; the 60-calendar-day testing clock only starts once you've signed consent. A school-based team then applies Georgia's own autism eligibility rule to decide whether your child qualifies for services at school — a separate question from whether a doctor has diagnosed autism.

• Richmond County School System — Special Education Department (706) 826-1132
• Columbia County School District — Special Services (706) 541-2700; preschool-age referrals (706) 541-2727 ext. 5360; homeschool/private-school referrals (706) 541-2723 ext. 5341

IEP or 504 · If you disagree with the school

Evaluation and diagnosis pathways in Augusta-Richmond County

These are hospital and university programs with public intake information. Listing here is informational — it is not a recommendation, and it is not medical advice. Public school evaluation is free and does not require any of these.

• Augusta University (Medical College of Georgia) — Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics — evaluates infants, children, and adolescents for autism spectrum disorder alongside ADHD, intellectual disability, and learning disabilities; based at Children's Hospital of Georgia and staffed by a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and a pediatric clinical psychologist · 706-721-7940 · the division's own page does not publish a referral requirement or a wait-time figure — call the academic office directly to ask about current intake
• BlueSprig Autism — Augusta Center — center-, home-, community-, and school-based ABA therapy for autistic children, delivered by board-certified behavior analysts and registered behavior technicians, with age-banded programs running from toddlers (Sprouts, ages 0–4) through Trailblazers (ages 13–18) · (762) 685-4340 · no public wait-time figure is posted; the center's site lists most major insurers as accepted, including TRICARE, Kaiser Permanente, and Humana — start with the online intake form

How assessment works · What to do while you wait

Disability services and waivers: Georgia DBHDD — Region 2 Field Office (headquartered in Augusta)

DBHDD runs Georgia's developmental-disability system, including the NOW and COMP Medicaid waivers, and Richmond County families apply through the Region 2 Field Office — which sits inside Augusta itself, at 3405 Mike Padgett Highway. File through the Individual IDD Connects portal on the Georgia Collaborative ASO website with documentation of your child's disability attached; DBHDD warns that a mailed paper form has to be typed into that same portal by staff, which slows things down. From there, Region 2 confirms the file is complete and a DBHDD psychologist makes a pre-eligibility call, though the agency does not say how long either step takes. If your child is found eligible but no funded waiver slot is open yet, the case moves onto Georgia's statewide planning list, which has held several thousand people for years — so an early application matters more than a fast diagnosis does. It's also worth checking the separate Katie Beckett (TEFRA) Medicaid pathway, since it looks at the child's own condition rather than household income.

• Georgia DBHDD — Region 2 Field Office (headquartered in Augusta)
• Phone: (706) 792-7733 (DBHDD Region 2, Augusta) · 678-248-7449 (Katie Beckett centralized team)

Local organizations that help Augusta-Richmond County families

• Serenity Behavioral Health Systems (Community Service Board of East Central Georgia) — the local CSB serving Richmond, Columbia, Lincoln, McDuffie, Taliaferro, Warren, and Wilkes counties — behavioral health and developmental disability services (706-432-4800)
• MOM: Moving Over Mountains Against Autism — parent-led CSRA support group — monthly parent nights, IEP-meeting support, and an annual autism awareness walk (706-495-3161)
• Parent to Parent of Georgia — Georgia's federally designated parent training and information center, free statewide birth through 26 (1-800-229-2038)
• Autism Society of Georgia — statewide information and referral specialists, support groups, and workshops across the lifespan (844-404-2742)
• United Way of the CSRA — 211 — dial 211 or call 706-826-1495 for a free referral search covering Richmond, Columbia, and surrounding counties
• Family Y of Greater Augusta — Miracle League — adaptive baseball for ages 4 and up on a rubberized field behind the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center; spring and fall seasons (706-922-9597)
• Kathryn M. York Adapted Aquatics Center (Family Y of Greater Augusta) — adapted swim lessons and a disability swim team at the Wilson Family Y branch, after an initial evaluation (706-922-9664)
• Special Olympics Georgia — Augusta Stars — year-round training and competition for athletes 8 and up in bocce, cycling, bowling, kayaking, and more

Documented waits and access notes

Wait times change. Each note below links to the public source it came from — confirm current status directly with the program.

• Georgia's autism-insurance mandate, Ava's Law, requires state-regulated health plans to cover autism care including ABA — but it caps ABA benefits at $35,000 a year and doesn't reach self-funded employer plans at all, which cover a large share of privately insured families. (source)
• DBHDD's Region 2 Field Office is physically headquartered in Augusta, but its territory stretches across dozens of counties in central and east Georgia — living near the office isn't the same as being first in line, since waiver eligibility and the planning list are managed on a statewide basis. (source)
• Georgia's NOW/COMP planning list — the queue for people found eligible for a waiver but not yet funded — held about 7,900 people statewide as of September 2025, roughly 3,000 of them under age 22; no Augusta-only or Richmond County-only count is published. (source)
• Richmond and Columbia County schools get a further 30 calendar days after an eligibility finding to hold the IEP meeting, separate from the 60-day evaluation window. (source)
• Richmond County's Babies Can't Wait referrals move on the same 45-day federal clock as the rest of the state: an IFSP meeting must happen within 45 days of the Children 1st line taking the call. (source)
• Ava's Law's coverage requirement for autism care ends at age 21, a ceiling separate from the law's $35,000 annual ABA cap. (source)