Sydney Forman cannot speak. She inspired her sister to help kids in Camden.

Karly Forman Cohen’s commitment to helping kids with disabilities began not long after Sydney, her younger sister, was born in 1996. Sydney is nonverbal.

“Basically, my childhood was defined by being part of a community of people who had children with special needs,” Cohen, 29, said at the office of Raise the Bar Family Services.

Cohen’s nonprofit organization in downtown Camden serves 34 families, most of whom are caring for a child diagnosed with Down syndrome or autism. Raise the Bar helps parents navigate the process of qualifying and applying for public and private services and assistance programs, while offering their kids social and educational activities.

Raise the Bar will celebrate its first anniversary Nov. 2.

“Growing up in Mount Laurel and Cherry Hill, I was super close to Sydney. I was conscious of how some people stared at her, and I saw how difficult it could be for my parents to get her the services that she needed,” said Cohen, who earned a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

She’s the daughter of Rick Forman, who founded and later sold the Forman Mills discount clothing chain and now owns the Turn 7 stores in Moorestown and Northeast Philly.

Cohen lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Elijah Cohen, whom she married as her nonprofit got rolling (”it’s been a busy year”). Her older sister, Lindsay Capecci, heads the committee that oversees Raise the Bar’s Kids Club programs; she has a background in special education and lives in Haddonfield.

Cohen said she named Raise the Bar to honor their mother, a speech and language pathologist who retired after Sydney was born in order to focus on her youngest daughter’s needs.

“I always encouraged Sydney’s teachers to challenge her,” Donna Forman said. “I kept saying, ‘You need to raise the bar.’ A lot of people make assumptions about Sydney and her peers. They think that because she doesn’t talk, she doesn’t understand. But she does understand.”

Despite her professional connections in the human services world, Donna Forman said, dealing with the array of public and private agencies involved in the lives of children with disabilities was daunting.

“You have to fight for what your child is entitled to,” she said. “Each case is highly individual, but sometimes there is a cookbook response. And what about the families that don’t have the same resources that ours does?”

Donna Forman also said she’s “incredibly proud of Karly for going out there, following her passion, making her dream happen — and helping so many other people.”

Said Cohen’s dad, Rick Forman: “Karly is very organized. She’s done her homework and networking, in order to help people, including people on low incomes, or single mothers.

“She’s a resource center. And I’m a proud father.”

Overseeing what is essentially a start-up that serves a frequently marginalized population in an underresourced city “is much harder than I ever imagined,” said Cohen. “But so far, it’s going incredibly well.”

Having a clear vision of what she wanted to do and conducting a needs assessment among families she hoped to serve were essential, she said. Along with former intern Sara Murphy, who has since become RTB’s director of programs and operations, Cohen distributed surveys, set up focus groups, and met with representatives of other nonprofits that work with young people in Camden to detect gaps in services for kids with disabilities.

“There are a lot of organizations doing good work, but often they’re in the suburbs, and people in the city can have transportation issues,” said Cohen.

“Underresourced communities can have less awareness” of what is available for young people with special needs — especially as they age out of the school system, she said.

“Helping parents obtain guardianship over a child who has become a young adult is a big part of what we do.”

What Camden parents said they most wish for is for their kids to have more social opportunities with their peers.

Alicia Rivera lives in North Camden and is the mother of Taina S. Rivera, 20, who has Down syndrome.

“My daughter was moved through seven schools in five years,” Rivera said. “She came to me once and said, ‘Mommy, I don’t have any friends,’ because every time they switched her to another school, she didn’t know anybody. But with Raise the Bar, now she has friends. She has a best friend named Malik.”

Taina Rivera was among the nine attendees at the Oct. 12 “Social Squad” gathering at Raise The Bar’s offices on Market Street, where there were board games, pop music, a group exercise about super heroes — and plenty of before-dinner conversation.

Assisted by several parents and volunteers, Forman, Murphy, and Maria Espinal-Mena, who recently joined Raise The Bar as program and communications coordinator, kept the kids off their phones and engaged with their peers.

Tracy Law, a laborer who lives in Camden, brought his son, Tracy Jr., who’s 15 and has autism.

“He’s a little shy, and this helps him to socialize, to open up and talk,” said Law, whose late wife, Noreen, first brought their son to Raise the Bar. In a brief interview during Social Squad, Tracy Jr. said he was enjoying himself and likes meeting others like himself.

“Sometimes it’s a challenge for him to be around other people, but we tell him, ‘Just be calm,’” his dad said. “This program is beautiful. It’s great to see these kids happy. And it helps the parents understand autism, which is a different world.”

“Raise the Bar is a great example of how when someone sees a need and has the passion to do it, they can really make an impact,” said Dan Rhoton, executive director of Hopeworks Camden.

The high-tech skills training program for young people is in the same Market Street building as RTB, and Rhoton “encouraged me” to pursue the dream, Cohen said.

“There is so much good energy in Camden, and so many people working to make it a better place,” she said. “But I’m an outsider, and I try to be super mindful of that. I try to lead from a place of respect, and meet people where they are, and be extremely open with everyone.

“And I listen. Because I don’t have all the answers.”