The Jenin Autism Project – The Reason We Are Here

My friend Kitti South Robinson along with Melissa Diamond are in Jenin, in the West Bank of the Palestinian territory for the next few months working on “The Jenin Autism Project,” part of “A Global Voice for Autism.” They are there to help parents learn about autism and Applied Behavior Analysis and help connect them to other autism resources as well as building their own supportive network. They are blogging their experiences here to share their efforts in figuring out how to best help children with autism in a part of the world where so little help is available.  See the end of this post for links to prior posts on “The Jenin Autism Project.”

By Melissa Diamond

I am going to start today’s post by sharing a Facebook post by autism self-advocate Carly Fleischmann.

Click here to see Carly’s post before reading.

A few nights ago we had a team meeting to fine-tune our mission statement and explanation of the services we are offering in the Jenin community. After spending an hour going over the phrasing of our goals and mission, I still think that Carly says it best. We are here so that families and children who are so often silenced in their community can find their voices and be heard without judgment.

With this goal in mind, we know that we must choose every word we say carefully, as our word is being accepted as the sole authority on autism in this community. We were featured on two radio stations, Zain FM and NAS FM where we were asked to define autism and to explain its signs and symptoms to all who were listening. The questions we were asked on air ranged from “Is autism a disability?” to “What is ABA?” to “What advice do you have for the Jenin community to raise awareness about autism?” We answered the questions through a translator, carefully thinking out our answers before we explained them.

Still, we are always working to improve as a team and as professionals and decided to spend the night practicing and refining our mission statement and explanation of our program components. For those of you who are less familiar with what we do, here are our final results (subject to future revisions):

Mission: To empower mothers in underserved communities to help their children with autism through didactic and hands-on training in ABA techniques, family support groups and community outreach.

Parent Training and Cooperative: This component of the program involves theoretical training on Applied Behavior Analysis techniques followed by hands-on practice with experienced therapists. After developing their skills, mothers in the program will then utilize these skills in a cooperative program through which they will provide therapy to each others’ children and train other mothers in the community in these techniques.

Parent Support: ABA is an evidence-based practice that helps children with autism improve socially significant behaviors. However, these improvements do not happen overnight. Often behavior gets worse before it gets better. Our parent support group provides a forum for mothers in the program to share their successes and challenges with their children with others who can relate to their experiences.

Sibling Support: Family members are affected by autism, and siblings are no exception. Our sibling support program teaches siblings of children with autism techniques that will help them interact with their siblings and provides a community of other children who can relate to their experiences.

Community Outreach: Our community outreach program works to reduce stigma surrounding autism in the community through educational sessions and lectures in schools, universities and at the Governorate.

We hope that we thought out and used each of these words carefully, but please let us know by commenting below if you have any suggestions!

Birthday Party, Translation and Program Supplies

By Kitti South Robinson (written a few days ago)

Today we did not have any meetings scheduled but had a long list of supplies needed for the program.  Tomorrow is the start of the weekend in Jenin, and everything will be closed. And with our trainings starting Saturday morning, today was our only chance to buy the things we need.

Earlier this week, we discovered that some of our new friends here, as well as Daniel from our team, all have January birthdays.  Since we didn’t have any meetings scheduled today, we had an impromptu birthday party for all the January birthdays!  We met our local friends at the center and walked to get falafel for lunch and a birthday cake, the only requirement being chocolate!  We all ate cake and sang the traditional “happy birthday” song.

After the “party” our friends helped us translate the last of the trainings in preparation for Saturday.  Then, they helped us shop for the long and random list of supplies we need for Saturday, and food to survive the day tomorrow, since everything will be closed.  It took about two hours to track down all of the supplies, but we got it done!

Some of the items on our list included: rice, beans, socks (for a sensory activity), printouts of the trainings, colored pencils, markers, paints, matching items, paper, folders, pencil sharpeners and other various toys.  The children won’t be joining our training until Monday, so we will have more time to shop for toys and reinforcers on Sunday afternoon.

Click here to read their first post about the project. Click here for the second post.

Melissa and Kitti will take turns blogging about their experiences, which will be posted here and on their own blog. For more information, please check  their blog and the website for A Global Voice for Autism.