“She has no idea how she is truly loved by the entire autism community,” says Karen Blevins who nominated Tina Waters, the executive director of Include Autism/Community Coaching Center as a local hero. Blevins, a mother of four, is grateful that Waters followed her dream. One of Blevins’s identical triplet sons, Bradford, is diagnosed with both mental retardation as well as autism. “Thanks to Tina, the quality of his life has been—and will continue to be—exponentially better than it would have been had he not met her.”
Neither of Waters’ two sons are affected by autism, however, she saw a void and devoted her career to helping those in need. She saw the diagnosis of autism rapidly rise and recognized that a huge disabling condition shared by many children on the autism spectrum was a lack of socialization skills. Waters dreamt of bringing these youngsters out of their shells and help them break free of the emotional chains an autism diagnosis often signals. She hoped to create a program where children attend a safe, friendly and fun environment to learn socially appropriate behaviors, and take them on excursions into the community, giving them a chance to test drive their new skills.
It wasn’t long before Waters established the Community Coaching Center (CCC), now part of “Include Autism.”
“It’s really about opening your mind and your heart to let people in,” Waters says. “Recognizing each person for what they can do and be willing to look at the world through a different lens. Community members want to learn how,” she adds, citing that often they don’t know what to do. “That’s why it’s so important to educate the general public in the ways they can help include autistic people in their everyday lives.”
Through the CCC program, Waters enables children to learn social skills in a safe corner of the world where they can grow and blossom.
“It’s a place where they can feel safe peeking their noses out from their tortoise shell of autism,” says Blevins, “to explore the world with their peers and phenomenal coaches.”
Visit IncludeAutism.org to learn more.
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Claire Yezbak Fadden is an award-winning freelance writer and mother of three sons. Follow her on Twitter @claireflaire.
Published: February 2013
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