Breaking through the barriers of Autism

"It was pretty overwhelming, there were so few services and there wasn't much information about autism. It was very overwhelming it was very scary," says Judi Brookshire.

Her youngest son, Luke, was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old.

"I was lucky I was a social worker and I had worked in some early intervention programs so I had access to people who would tell me what I needed to do or help me make desicions and it's definately a life lesson in learning, you learn from that point on everything you can about autism," says Judi.

Judi's quest for knowledge lead her to the Autism Society of America East Tennessee chapter where she met Beth Ritchie the mother of twins John and Tim.

"They were in a mother's day out program and they were not talking and the director of the mother's day out program actually mentioned to me that they were a little bit behind and when she said that to me I sort of freaked out and started calling people and got them into a program and that's where they were diagnosed," says Beth.

The twins were diagnosed right before their 3rd birthday.

"So I have double the experience with autism. They are identicle twins, but there is nothing identical at all about their autism. They are pretty much as different as night and day. So I have been involved with the autism society and with lots of organizations having to do with autism," says Beth.

In 1999 Judi and Beth were part of a group of parents who saw problems down the road for their aging children.

"11 or 12 seems young, but at that point we were thinking you know we're going to be out of the school system when they turn 22 and what's out there? We started looking at what was available for adults with autism and we couldn't find anything," recalls Judi.

That group of parents decided to start an organization devoted to developing services for adults with autism called Breakthrough Corportaion.

The first program to get off the ground was a respite and recreation program. The joint program with the University of Tennessee provides clients 18 and older with a day of activities and gives caretakers a chance to get away from the stresses of the daily care of a family member.

Breakthrough Corporation also operates homes in the community and provides personal assistants who work with clients on their daily needs.

The next goal for the group is to start a day services program to provide clients with regular daily activities.

"When they don't have that kind of structure in their lives, if they are of the least bit obsessive complulsive their obsessive compulsiveness gets worse and worse and if they tend to have behavioral problems that gets worse. they can also lose skills and they are much happier when thye have a set schedule," says Beth.

Breakthrough just obtained a grant from hud for more than 1 million dollars to build three more homes on this piece of property. The property already includes a warehouse that they hope will be an asset to the program.

"Once we refurbish the warehouse not only will it be the recreation center for the houses that we're going to build on that property, but it will also be a place where individuals from the community can come in and use it as a recreation center," says Beth.

The ultimate goal for Breakthrough is to build a campus that would provide on site housing, job training and continuing education specifially geared toward adults with autism. Beth says that would be her dream come true.

"One day I hope the campus will be set up so that they can interact with the community in a safe environment. That would be eutopia for me and for my sons," says Beth.

Breakthrough relies on community support to fund their projects. Next friday night they are holding an event called bunko for breakthrough. You can find more information on that event and other events to benefit breakthrough on their website. You can find a link to that website on the Style page at wbir.com.