Great resources are hard to come by!

Throughout the past year, we have all experienced a crazy time. When COVID hit, it was a HUGE hit to our homes. I don’t want to diminish the frustration of parents with neurotypical children. I know that parents became classroom teachers and had to step in to support their children like they never have before. Trying to work from home, do school, and be a chef all at once was difficult for many. However, what most other families don’t understand about being a parent of a child with autism or another disability, multiply that frustration by 1000. Not only did we have to do all of those things, all of the additional supports HALTED. Our kids need structure and when schedules get changed, most of them struggle. Behaviors that we thought were under control come back. New behaviors form. Progress we were making slide backwards. It’s a whole different experience.

For me, we were in a groove with a day program, Vocational Rehab, ABA therapy, and respite supports. Since my daughter was now a high school graduate, we had her days filled with programming that fit her next phase of life. All was going great! Then POOF! Everything stopped. I understood it, we all needed to have some reset time to figure out what the heck we were supposed to do. Because service providers rely on community outings and being in person, it was difficult for most of them to think differently about how to still work with their clients in a different way. I mean, providing services is a BUSINESS, right? Regardless of losing income, I just couldn’t wrap my head around why some of the providers weren’t pulling their team together to be innovative and think through this problem.

Guess who stepped up to the plate to figure it out? Our ABA PROVIDERS! We all know that our ABA providers are 1000% awesome anyway, but if a family hasn’t experienced ABA, you are missing out. Even though clinics closed and supports couldn’t be done in person, they figured it out. Recently, I talked to owner of Imprint Pediatric Therapy, Shawn Steen. Shawn said something that really stuck with me. She told me that she is relentless in getting what kids need. She will continue to fight for the kids no matter what. Shawn also shared that she and her staff are always evolving to support their clients. When COVID hit, they created a ton of videos that parents could use at home to work with their children. AND the videos are made public for any family to access. Even though their services are now being offered in the clinic again, they continue to record and post videos to support families still at home. They are in the business of providing ABA services, but they’re are also focused on supporting the WHOLE community with their outreach. Imprint has been a great support of the Columbus Autism Network and continue to support our community as a whole, whether you are a client or not.

Another ABA provider that provides HOME based services also came up with a solution. Beyond the Label took a beat to rethink their services and supports and set a plan. They couldn’t go into homes, but they didn’t have to be asked to figure it out. Behavior Analyst, Heidi Mann stated that the most important thing for them was to figure something out quickly to eliminate lag time in services. They immediately went into problem solving mode to determine how to provide virtual services to their clients in the interim. Utilizing Zoom was the best opportunity to ensure a quick response to their client’s needs. They determined what the structure of a Zoom session would include and double checked compliance standards for virtual meetings with insurance to ensure families were still covered. They took Zoom to a whole new level. They quickly rolled out Zoom sessions to the highest need clients and offered individualized parent support modules via Zoom as well. They played games, they showed our kids how to use technology in a new way, and most of all - THEY SHOWED UP! Their innovation and quick thinking was super helpful to many families. The time that our children were with them even on Zoom was time that parents cherished. One parent stated, “My daughter was DRAWING on the computer on the whiteboard within Zoom - with a mouse! They were playing a game of ‘guess what I’m drawing’ and they took turns drawing and guessing. They also played BINGO, they watched short videos to talk about problem/solution scenarios, and best of all, they connected.” Even now, they are still evolving and posting new parent support modules on their webpage under Family Tools.

I know that there are other stories from families to celebrate the awesomeness of their ABA providers too. ABA has been a life saver for our family. We would love to share your ABA provider story! Email your story to columbusautismnetwork@gmail.com so we can say THANK YOU and celebrate our providers!