The HANNA PERKINS SCHOOL, initially located at 2084 Cornell Rd., was founded as Children's House in 1951 by Dr. ANNY KATAN. It pioneered the use of psychoanalysis with young children and has emphasized treatment of the troubled preschool child through the parent. As an outgrowth of these efforts, in 1960 Katan and Dr. Robert Furman and Eleanor Hosley founded the CLEVELAND CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT, which had offices at Hanna Perkins in 1995. With about 15 students per year initially, the school was created in the Child Psychiatry Division of UNIV. HOSPITALS OF CLEVELAND under the auspices of the School of Medicine's Division of Psychiatry, Western Reserve Univ. Katan served as Hanna Perkins's first director (1951-64); EMMA PLANK was the first administrative director. Around 1953 the school began to be called Univ. Hospitals Nursery School; that year Hosley, executive director of the Day Nursery Assn. (see CLEVELAND DAY NURSERY AND FREE KINDERGARTEN ASSN.), became administrative director. The school remained under the jurisdiction of UH until 1961 when administrative responsibility moved to the Day Nursery Assn. Hanna Perkins then expanded to include a kindergarten and relocated to a building shared with the Day Nursery Assn. Furman succeeded Katan as director. First, the Day Nursery Assn. and then the Cleveland Center For Research in Child Development gradually assumed jurisdiction over psychoanalytic work. By 1977 the school carried its 1995 name, in honor of the MARCUS A. HANNA and Simon Perkins families, which supported Cleveland's early nursery schools. In 1993 the Hanna Perkins School became home to the KATAN ARCHIVES.
In 2003, the school moved to 19910 Malvern Road in SHAKER HEIGHTS and was operating at that site as of 2019.