There's a first time for everything...

As I approach the second anniversary of my business, I have been trying to decide what I want to say for my first blog entry. I have been thinking and talking a lot lately about the “big picture” for Autism. I have been struggling through my own feelings about the public views about this, the relationship (or lack thereof) between and among all the different organizations and networks. A huge goal of mine is to support people to build and maintain their own “village” of people and resources to help them connect and be successful in all aspects of their lives. I teach people about how important it is to remember that everyone on their team has a role and they will all need to lean on each other at some point. At my wedding, my dad made a speech to our guests about how grateful he is that my husband and I have such a wonderful group of people embracing and supporting us and our relationship. He said, “We are all making a commitment to you today. As a group, we are here to make sure you know that you’re taken care of. We are wrapping our arms around you two so you know that we are here. Sooner or later, you are going to need one of us, and we will be there.”
 
Everyone needs a “village”. It’s human nature. It’s fact. I have spent a lot of time and energy helping each individual person I work with to build those relationships and understand how they can rely on each person for different things. Now, I’m thinking that we need to be doing that on a larger scale. In the Autism community, we have a lot of different networks, organizations, systems, schools, politics, etc. We need to find a way to come together as a team. Every organization has its role. Sometimes we will disagree. Many times, we will agree. In some way, we need to combine all these resources and collaborate. I’m not saying I know how to do that or even where to begin, but I’m saying it’s important to start talking about it.