Task Force on Autism
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Unknown speaker
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
Welcome, everybody.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
4:00
Good morning. Before we start, I'd like to
take a moment to recognize that today is the first day of Autism Awareness Month, and so I wore my blue today in honor of that. So I'm happy that we have a meeting today on
this wonderful day. Do you have any remarks, co-chair?
Yes, she did. All right. all right um let's adopt our minutes from last meeting january 13 2026 can i get a second
make a second okay um all in favor say aye all in favor
say no the ayes have it motion carries All right, today we have
a very robust meeting today. We have a presentation from the University of Arkansas program supporting students with autism
and other disabilities. If, okay, I'm going to say these names correctly, right? Okay.
Today we have Dean Mami
Sayed-Shavili. And we have Dr.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
5:18
y'all could come up. Thank you.
Speaker 17
5:42
Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Well, we're very excited to be here and honored to make this presentation. My name is Kate Mamiseishvili, and my colleague here, Dr. Suzanne Koharchik, and we represent the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions. The College of Education, a little bit before we talk about the program, the College of Education and Health Professions, as the name indicates, We prepare students for careers in education and health care from teaching, nursing, education policy, leadership, athletic training, exercise science, recreation and sport management, public health.
I'm sure I'm believing occupational therapy, speech pathology. So it's a very comprehensive education and health college. We have over 6,000 students. students. We graduate about 1,400 educators and healthcare professionals every year, and we're very proud of that. About 350 faculty and staff members, very proud of the work that they are doing, training these caring professionals and improving education and
health care in Arkansas. We are here to talk about the two programs for our students with autism and other disabilities. I must say that we have several other programs in the college, research, outreach, that also focus on disability studies and disability services, Autism Waiver Program.
Karen Burnett here leads our Partners for Inclusive Communities. But these are the two programs that support our students, primarily on campus. So that's why we're here. The first program we're going to talk about is the Empower Program. You can see on the slide, it's not really an acronym, but the letters do represent Educate, Motivate, Prepare Opportunity, Workplace Readiness, Employment, and Responsibility.
And Ashley Bradley is the director of the program. The program launched in 2017. Dean Tom Smith at that time put a committee together in 2016 to think about a new program that would support non-degree-seeking students who wanted to gain college experience. There was a lot of support from university leadership, faculty, and staff,
and a program launched in 2017 with three students. So it is a non-degree four-year inclusive post-secondary education program for young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 with mild intellectual disabilities who require limited supports. So the students who are in the program,
they demonstrate that they can safely live independently, they can hold on to the employment, and socially integrate. And their program provides the full-scale immersive college experience, non-degree, it's a non-degree program. And it is approved by the U.S. Department of Education as a comprehensive transition and post-secondary program. And this allows students to be eligible for financial aid.
These type of the programs you see on many campuses, there are 300 of them across the country. Right now when the program started, it was probably at that time, according to Dean Smith, it was about maybe 100, 150. 13 out of 16 SEC institutions have a similar program. So except Ole Miss University of Florida and University of Texas, everyone else has a program like this.
In the state, there are four programs, University of Arkansas, Arkansas State, Pulaski Tech, and Southern Arkansas University also have this program. And the program focuses on providing college experience, independent living skills, and preparing for employment and with the students becoming fully functioning adults. This is really the primary focus of the program, and Dr. Koharchik will talk about this a little more.
The program started with one other thing I would say. The program started with significant support from Chilton Foundation. This is the foundation out of Dallas, but the two sisters who manage the foundation, they are graduates of our college, and over time they've generously supported this program from establishing a faculty fellowship
that Dr. Kukharcik holds to having endowed scholarships and also operational endowment to support the program. All right, I'm gonna pass it on to Dr. Kukharcik to talk about more about the services that the program provides. - Thank you, Dean. I'm Suzanne Kukharcik. I
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am Associate Professor of Special Education, a proud researcher in the
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area of autism for many years. I am a department head of the Department of Curriculum
and Instruction, in which I'm a very proud faculty advisor for the Empower Program. And Lisa Green, who leads our Autism Support Program, which I'll talk about shortly, is a faculty member. So we are thrilled to represent the incredible work that that staff does. In addition to the Chilton support that really built the program at its inception, other ways that the program is supported is through fee-based services.
So the students pay $5,000 a semester to receive the additional comprehensive services in addition to tuition. Tuition is, 75% of that tuition comes back to the program to be able to create all of the important services and supports that students receive. There are a number of scholarships that are provided from the Chilton Foundation, as well as individual contributions. We have a new business that is building a scholarship
for the Empower program, so there's multiple ways for students to offset the additional cost for the comprehensive services that they get, which I'll talk about in a second. So as Dean said, 2017 started with three students. Since that time, we've had 15 graduates that have their names inscribed on our senior walk. you may know that that is an important tradition of ours. And we're very proud to have their names in those sidewalks. Currently, in this current semester,
we have 28 students across freshman through senior year. In terms of experiences that students receive, as the dean talked about, we really want to make sure that students get the full range of experiences from their education. so that student, and to that end, students take 15 hours per semester of credit hours. Six of those are Empower courses, so they're courses where they are learning to be independent, where they're learning financial skills, where they're learning skills important for employment,
for example, as well as traditional classes that they're taking at the university. And those courses and the plan for those 120 hours that they complete by the end is based on a person-centered plan that is developed and rechecked every so often with the team and family as appropriate for the student, as well as other people who are important to them. Another important aspect of that person-centered plan is the self-determination processes that are built into those experiences
so that we're always making sure that we're leading from the experience of the student and following their lead in terms of making decisions around courses, around the experiences that are important to them as well as the resources that they need as they learn who they are, just like any student at the University of Arkansas or any campus, who they are through those four years and those things change. And our students are taking classes in our ag programs, our Fulbright programs in math and English
and learning how to be good pre-educators and those sorts of things. Independence is another important part of their experience. So students live on campus at Morgan Hall for two years with support from a residential mentor who receives a stipend and is typically somebody who's getting a graduate degree in one of our programs also in the college, like vocational rehabilitation social work and those sorts of things that make sense for them in terms of
building their own experiences and obviously just like any students that is a really critical experience that students have in terms of living on campus they also have supports for social engagement making sure that they are the kind of rate getting the Razorback experience that any student is getting at the university going based on what their interests are going to sports or not going to sports sitting at the coffee shop making sure they're getting to classes on time navigating the complexity of a large campus all
those things we are currently in the process of and have been for many years of working with our Greek life to continue to build inclusive experiences within sororities especially as we move forward and then looking to grow that they have had a number of experiences over the years that have been embedded within the sisterhood of those Greek houses, and we are looking to codify those experiences. And then importantly, employment, just like all of our students. So across the four years,
they're getting more and more experience and work-based experiences that prepare them for their future lives, again, based on that person-centered plan. So in those first two years, they're getting a lot of service learning and volunteering, just like any other student at the university. And then as they move into their junior year senior year they're expected to move into internships which are more sustained employment among one of the 20 at this point places across the community where we have memorandum of agreements in terms of the expectations between the
student their career coach and the employer or the hopefully future employer. Mentors and interns are really important part of Empower. We have a really strong group of mentors across various groups from peer mentors, those residential life mentors, and career coaches that support their success. Peer mentors are there to hang out, to help the student to be part of the
community of the college and Fayetteville in the surrounding area so they are doing the kinds of things that students do together going to places hanging out at the union those sorts of things residential mentors as I mentioned are do get paid and are expected to be that really check-in and additional support in additional in addition to what housing already provides and then career Interns are supporting the success of those students across their volunteer and then in their internship experiences as they move forward.
So really an important group of people that are in and of themselves get resources. So they get credit hours for doing some of that work. They are also getting service learning credit and learning a great deal about themselves and who they want to be in their future careers. Those internship sites, I already mentioned, 20 placements that we currently have MOUs with across Northwest Arkansas. And by the senior year, we're expecting students, depending on what their needs are, to be working 6 to 20 hours a week engaged in that work.
We also have agreements with vocational rehabilitation, Arkansas and Texas specifically, depending on where the students are with their home state to make sure that students it's not just a graduation that we have a handoff and a transition for that student once they get into their back to their home environment or wherever they choose to live through
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that process and that career mentorship so that is the information about Empower
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And another program that we also wanted to discuss is the autism, our
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autism support program, which is a similar program to Empower, but the main difference is the autism support program is for degree-seeking students. So students in this program, they are admitted into the university like any other students, and they are pursuing a degree program, and that could be in our college or in any of the other academic colleges on campus. And this autism support program provides intensive support services from academics to services related to helping them to live independently and kind of provide social supports.
The director, Dr. Lisa Green, has been with the program from its beginning. She has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology and really developed the program and launched the program in 2012 and has been the director in that role since then, which has provided tremendous stability with that program. and even she developed the academic coaching, which is their signature program and support program that they provide to the students.
And Dr. Koharczyk will talk more about some of the details of the types of services that the program provides. And
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those students are in all types of degree programs, mathematics, engineering, so that academic coaching is really critical to supporting their success. We know that the students who are degree-seeking students with autism struggle with being able to complete a four-year degree, and so we're really passionate about ensuring that those students have the supports they need when they need them.
So some students come for their first semester to help with that transition onto campus and then realize I could do this on my own and move on without support. Others stay on for
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the full four or five years that they're on campus, depending on what their trajectory is. But I will talk about those three areas
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of really strong support that are provided, that academic coaching is really important. There's five hours a day where students have access to schedule time with an academic coach
and Dr. Green to making sure that they know what is in their syllabus, that all of the types of things that may be challenging, particularly for a student with autism, in terms of the complexities of knowing what's in a syllabus. I did a presentation for our faculty a few weeks ago in terms of supporting neurodiverse students on campus, and I asked our students from the Autism Support Program, what would you like your faculty to know? And the number one thing they said was, put it on the syllabus, make sure it is what you mean, and then do the thing on the syllabus, which is really connected to a department head, would expect.
So that was, we were well aligned. But that's the kinds of things that also students struggle with, right? Those uncertainties, those complexities of communication that may be happening. The other challenge is, and this is for both groups of students, whether in Empower or ASP, is that the types of supports and services that they maybe have had from K-12, particularly in high school, vary differently as they move into the college experience because laws are different in terms of IDEA governing one and ADA governing the other.
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In addition to academic coaching provided by four academic coaches in addition to Dr. Green, students get peer coaching. So
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this is, you know, checking in on those social skills, supporting challenges that may be happening, helping students to engage in university life, and giving them access to informal or formal groups that might be important to them that otherwise you need a little bit of a gatekeeper to open up sometimes. And those are typically undergraduate students.
And then we have career coaches who help to support the students, and those are typically graduate students as well as the academic coaching students who help students to transition to their future employment. Recently, Dr. Green added a career launch course that all students take to really have direct planning in terms of resume writing, making sure everybody has a LinkedIn account that is appropriate, aligned with their future goals,
and that there's a relationship with our career services on campus so that they can get that support that they need, in addition to exploring future career options and doing some of that pre-employment skill development within internships as well. So lots of fully encompassing services. In terms of students, since 2012, 70 students have been supported by Autism Support Program. Currently, about 16 students are in the program, and those that have graduated have a very healthy GPA,
which we are very proud of because, again, students with autism without the supports really tend to struggle academically if they are able to move through the complexities of a campus. Funding ASP, similarly to Empower, there's a $5,000 fee for those services. There are also scholarships that support students and to offset some of that cost. And those fees are pretty typical to other universities in a similar size, kind of in the middle of the road for these types of services.
Speaker 17
25:49
5,000 fee that started, that was the fee in 2012, and it has not increased since then. And we continue to do a cost analysis with peer programs to make sure that this is still affordable for our students. And we're proud that we have not, we've been able to continue the fee
for more than a decade without an increase.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
26:19
Sorry, thank you for the wonderful presentation. Do we have any questions from the task force? Any
questions? I have a question or two. When you mentioned the $5,000, is that per semester or is
Speaker 17
26:38
that for the whole program? for both programs it is per semester obviously the students pay tuition depending on whether
they are Arkansas students or out-of-state students the regular tuition and then this is the fee that is for the program
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
26:56
per semester I could see
that being a hindrance for some families so how do we eliminate that five thousand
Speaker 17
27:09
uh important thing that we we do is provide uh scholarships and fundraise for uh scholarship support so that um the students um get get financial um financial support both student
Students in both programs have access to financial aid also. And the fundraising team in the college and on campus, this is one of our signature priorities. We are fundraising for the Empower program, even for our One Day One University campaign that's coming up next week. And this is the program that we are highlighting to fundraise. So scholarships is our best way to support and reduce that cost
and not increase it, keep it to the minimum that is needed to operate the program. And I
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
28:09
also had another question. So these are two separate programs, or do they merge together,
or are they just two separate programs? They're two separate
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programs for two very different populations of people. They do merge in terms of
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sharing of ideas and resources, and both teams are in the same building,
Speaker 28
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so that kind of informal support certainly is there and wanting to make
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
28:40
sure that everybody is successful. I have one more
question. So I have a 17-year-old, and so he'll be 18 soon. So if me and my husband decide to let him go to U of A, um walk me through that will he have his own dorm will he have to share with somebody the one-on-one is it one person one mentor for one student or is it a shared experience how does
Speaker 28
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that work are you talking specifically about empower well or either of them so for an empower student that would look like two years of expectation
Speaker 23
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in terms of living in the dorm versus the Autism Support Program student, which has the same expectations as any other degree-seeking student, which is one year they're on campus, as in their freshman year. In terms of the mentorship and support, again, Empower, that is based on their person-centered plan.
So really thinking about what makes sense for this person, as well as who are our cadre of mentors. there's about 120 peer mentors every semester for empower so and they would have specific interests that so we would try to match up right in terms of what their interests are and what they do but we are expecting students to be independently navigating the campus and independently getting to classes so that those peer mentors aren't meant to be like the like a paraprofessional type of
staff that they might have been and thought about in terms of k-12 experiences we really want these to be more geared towards friendships that are supported and well trained so those mentors get significant training so residential mentors get training from our housing office and peer mentors get training obviously all from empower but also from student life to support them and and build skills for
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
30:36
them and are in the dorm are there together with everybody or is
there a section that's slated only for these
students are they integrated with the rest of the population they're integrated
Speaker 21
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with the rest of the population again depending on the needs of the students so there are
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students who wish to be closer together and then so that plan is made depending on what the structure is so maybe a suite might have three guys or and another and the women's hall maybe there's a woman who's alone and a woman next door and so on so that is very individualized in terms of supports and planning but to the to
with access to that result residential mentor so there needs to be some proximity there so they can get the supports
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that they need but we really strive for as much independence as possible because that's the goal The person center plan, I have
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a question about, do they have that before they're enrolled? Is it before they're enrolled and it's like an update yearly?
How does that work? Yeah. So the person center
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plan is the first thing that's done when students get on campus. So we want them again to have that full student experience so they are driving up with the up with the rest of the students parking and unloading and right so there is an orientation that happens a few weekend before start of the semester but that those person-centered plan happen in that first part of the first semester and then they're updated yearly because things change and they're also updated
when something changes to there's a need that arises that is unexpected or or we're finding that students are making progress you know whether that's academically in their classes or
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maybe you already addressed this and I kind of missed it if I'm confusing in empower with ASP please let me know but when they join and I'm assuming ASP program like do they get a structured plan with goals with their mentor and is it something that is measured similar to like an IEP that they get measured throughout their program to see if they're achieving what they
Speaker 23
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need to achieve for empower yes there is a program and data is collected because we
want to make sure that we are using data-based decision-making and those person-centered plans and thinking about progress and there are specific goals that students write through that self-determination process around their independence their academics and their future employment that gets checked for students in the autism support program that plan is really based on the student because they are degree-seeking students so it's far more tied to that plan of theirs and then really focusing and making sure that their academic needs are met and their peer
needs are met and that they have a plan with Dr. Green who checks it with them annually and makes that academic plan for their future. Because of the tight-knit group that that provides it is It's not quite as structured as the Empower
Speaker 17
34:21
the Empower students stay with the program the whole time. So they come in as Empower students, non-degree seeking for the college experience.
So they stay with the program the whole time. They are on campus. But for ASB, some students choose, once they get to campus, maybe the first year to be part of the ASB program, but then they might realize that they don't need these supports because they also have access to all the other services that the university provides from career counseling to academic advising and 360 advising and all of that.
so they could decide that they don't need this intensive autism-specific support, so they may just stop the ASB part of the program, and then they may re-engage later on if they have a difficult semester, so it's more fluid. Yeah, that's exactly right. Thank you for your presentation. Next
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
35:36
on the agenda we have Pulaski Technical College 3-D Program.
We have Dr. Catherine Miller here to speak about it. If you could come up.
Welcome, if you can both introduce yourselves.
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Good morning. I'm Dr. Mary Catherine Miller. I'm the 3D Program
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Director. And I'm Jan Lewandowski. I'm the Executive Director for Culinary Arts
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and Hospitality. Thank you for inviting us today to speak with you we're delighted to be here to share about our program. Our 3D program is a comprehensive transition and post-secondary program for individuals with intellectual and developmental
disabilities. Students are enrolled in culinary baking and hospitality courses for three years with the goal of being gainfully employed by the end of their time with us. Beyond teaching them the technical skills, we also seek to teach them independent living skills, financial literacy skills, and professionalism skills. Learning objectives for our 3D program include demonstrating growth and independent living skills, participation in academically enriched environments,
becoming active members of the college campus, and gaining experience leading to competitive employment the majority of our programs classes are integrated meaning students are enrolled with traditional students this creates a natural mentoring process and support system that takes place within the classroom while they are learning and they are with their chefs our 3d faculty and staff provide faded support over the course of three years what this means
is that by a student's final year we should we should be providing little to no oversight to ensure that they are workforce ready and then all of our classrooms have certified chef instructors teaching our students can choose from one of three tracks baking culinary or hospitality before they begin their specialty courses in their chosen track they all have to take
general courses to prepare them for their more advanced courses. These general courses include introduction to culinary and baking industry, food sanitation, food one and food two, foundations of baking and pastry, foundations of culinary art, product ID and quantity purchasing, and healthy foods and nutrition. If a student chooses the baking track, they're going to learn
everything from basic baking science and skills to confectionery. These upper level courses in this track include advanced techniques in cake decorating and assembling, artisan breads, candies, and chocolates. If our students choose a culinary track, they will proceed into food three and food four, which is fine dining skills and plating. Other upper-level courses include students learning how to create their own soups, stocks, sauces, condiments, learning how
to make precision cuts on various meats and seafoods, as well as learning how to make international cuisine. If our students pick the hospitality track, they will get a blend of both culinary and baking, and they will also take other classes that are pointed towards tourism, catering, and the restaurant industry. All tracks include courses such as introduction to financial literacy, professional conduct, an internship course that happens at Pulaski Technical
College, and then two external internships that happen in the greater Little Rock area or the Greater Arkansas area within professional kitchens as well. Since the programs start, we have enrolled 97 students and we have celebrated 57 graduations. In the next coming month, May 2026, we will celebrate five more graduations. It's our goal to graduate five to seven students each spring semester. Currently,
all of our enrolled students are set to graduate on time including the five that will be graduating in may our success rates for class completion meaning a student passed a college credit class with either an a a b or a c and did not have to retake the class has historically stayed above 89 The graph on the left hand side of the page is a summary of the statistics I just gave you on the
previous slide. In addition it has the statistic about our completion rate which is a compilation of the enrolled headcount divided by the completed and ongoing number which gives us the completion rate of 74 percent. I would like to highlight our upcoming graduating classes statistics. our graduating seniors have a cumulative gpa of 3.55 80 of them have achieved the chancellors
and dean's list distinction meaning they have an excellent gpa they've earned 405 college credits these are college classes not audit classes and then they've completed 15 internships Our graduating seniors are already either employed full-time, part-time, or as special event workers. What this means is that they are already earning paychecks, they're building their resumes, and they're being active members in the community.
As you know, not all outcomes are measurable. Some of the most important things in life simply can't be quantified. More than data, our students learn skills that help them become independent citizens. Skills that build their confidence, encourage self-advocacy, grow their social skills, and sharpen their problem-solving processes. These students learn how to speak up when something isn't right, and they learn how to persevere when something feels hard.
And they learn how to collaborate, even when it's a little bit uncomfortable. They learned that mistakes are not failures, but they're stepping stones. But if we had to quantify some of the wonderful milestones that our students are achieving on their journey to independence, we would want to highlight that many of our students are Serve Safe certified, which is essential for a kitchen. They're certified fundamentals cooks. They're certified fundamentals pastry cooks.
They're baking desserts or cooking dishes for special events. They're being employed full-time at restaurants across the greater Little Rock area. And as of this most recent semester, our spring semester, they are being inducted into the country's first culinary, baking, and hospitality student organization, Sigma Epsilon Phi. Students who are inducted into this student organization have earned and maintained a 3.0 GPA, or it could be higher.
They've met all the same qualifications as their peers. The beauty of this student organization is that our students now have the networking ability across the country for people who are in kitchens or bake shops across America. Other important outcomes I would like to highlight is our students' job attainment and retention. Not only do they get jobs, but they keep them for years. It's common for our students to get a job offer while they are in their practicum placement or right after their graduation.
While we're still updating some of our most recent data, as that's always an ongoing process, We are able to confirm that we have seven students who are celebrating seven years of continuous employment at places like David's Burgers, Chick-fil-A, Chicken Salad Chick, and Gina's Catering. We have three graduates who are celebrating almost five years at Blue Cake, and we have two graduates who are celebrating four years of continuous employment
and three years of seasonal employment at Community Bakery. What you are currently seeing on the screen is a compilation of academic and personal milestones. These are our students enjoying on-campus events with our community and with their peers. You're seeing events from Build an Animal, MasterChef Live, our Halloween-themed knife kit ceremony where students receive their knife kit in their first year, and other special events that our students volunteer at within the community.
Our program always needs partnerships in the community for more practicum site placements, locations, and opportunities. The more our students network with growing and flourishing businesses, the greater the likelihood that they will receive full-time employment upon graduation. This means they can be contributing citizens in any city that they choose to live in. But the 3D program can't do it alone. We need business partners that believe in the future and in the ability of our students
just as much as we do. So what do these sites look like? Well, they are culinary-centered, or baking-centered, or hospitality-centered. They are patient, and they subscribe to a teaching mentality where it's okay to ask questions and learn from their mistakes. They believe in growth and opportunities for all of their employees. In our current state, the 3D program can serve 20 students at max at a time.
We currently have four faculty and staff members total, three faculty and one staff member, who teach and assist students in the lecture classrooms and in the kitchen labs. Creating new partnerships doesn't just stop at practicum placement. We would love to have extended opportunities outside of that. Students and parents ask us every year what they can do over the summer or over the break to help make sure these skills stay sharp and to give them additional opportunities
to practice their independent living skills. This could be anything from activities to workshops to part-time jobs to camps or even trips. What we need as stewards of the 3D program is to know when and where these types of things are happening. The more information we can share, the more skills, opportunities, and exposure that our students will get before they graduate. Our future goals include expanding into more departments at Pulaski Tech.
We would love to explore other class offerings or tracks where our students have a strong interest. This of course means a lot of planning on our part and a lot of conversations to be had which we do look forward to. Another future goal we have is accreditation. We are currently preparing for accreditation with the Inclusive Higher Education Accreditation Council. IHEAC is an accrediting agency for college and
university programs for students with intellectual disabilities. While our culinary arts and hospitality management institute is accredited with the American Culinary Federation our program seeks to gain an additional accreditation and the purpose of pursuing this is to ensure and demonstrate quality assurance and programming for all of our students if we are accredited we would be among some of the first colleges in the country to
achieve this distinction as you may have recognized in our presentation we have lofty goals and we have exceptional students thank you again for inviting us to share about our wonderful program
we're proud of our students and we're proud of their achievements thank you
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
49:13
thank you for that wonderful presentation do we have any questions from our task force
Speaker 84
49:20
members thanks as you were going through the success rates I was just kind
of curious you know between 89 percent 100 percent 94 percent how is success measured and what prevents that from being 100 across the board is it the integrated classes that pull students down or is it just not being able to complete basically all the the things that you got to complete when they're learning all the tactile skills of the culinary arts?
Speaker 75
49:50
It's a blend of all of the tactile skills that they'll need to learn. There is a lot of diverse skills as far as how they hold things,
how they prepare things. They have a rubric that we go by that it's not just points on cutting something or cooking something, but we're also measuring their reliability, their dependability, their professionalism. The 89% is a composite of students with A's, B's and C's. So if they have an A, a B or a C, they pass the class. Between the 89 and 100%, we average each of those to each student together and that's how we get our median score of the mid-90s.
Speaker 84
50:37
what are the integrated classes? So apart from the baking, the cooking, hospitality, could you go into what the integrated classes are and how much weight do those have in terms of graduation success? Sure, absolutely. So our integrated classes really
Speaker 75
50:51
take hold in their second and third year. The first year we're getting them acclimated to being in a kitchen because as we all know, working in a kitchen, whether it's at home or in a professional setting is tough work. It's not something you walk into and get the hang of within your first week of
classes. So it does take them about a year to acclimate to all the demands of a kitchen and we are teaching to the American Culinary Federation standard. So the first year they are in 3D only classes with their 3D peers and these are our foundation level classes. In their second year and third year the in the majority of their classes all but for about one class is integrated so they are taking food one and food two and artisan breads and all of the other wonderful
classes like candies and chocolates that are difficult courses alongside their traditional peers and so they are measured by their own rubric but they're also kept up with the syllabus and with the lesson plans as their traditional peers. Does that answer your question well? It does. Okay. What is the tuition?
Our tuition for the entire three-year program is $27,135. It's $5,700 a semester. So one way we help offset that cost is we encourage all of our students to apply for the Arkansas Governor's Higher Education Transition Program, the GETS. We like to walk around and say, did you get your GETS yet? That's a fun way for us to remind students to apply for it.
If students have trouble applying for it, we sit down with them and we help them apply because it's really important that they get that scholarship in order to keep their costs low. In addition to that, we also encourage all of our students to fill out FAFSAs to earn any money that they can from that. And then if they belong to Arkansas Rehab Services, they also contribute to the student's bill. Many times our students don't owe anything after all of those services kick in, which is very nice.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
53:20
I have a question. So you mentioned earlier
in your presentation that getting community partnerships has been difficult. What are some of the hurdles there when you're trying to do that, establish that? Absolutely. That's an excellent question. We really try to match our students
Speaker 75
53:41
with a place that they want to work as well as a place we think they'll do well in.
So that means we have to establish continuous partnerships. So as part of our person-centered planning, in the second year, we sit down with students and we sit down with their parents, and we ask them, where would you ultimately like to work one day? What's a place that you think, oh, it would be really cool if I could take my skills into here? And we make a top three or a top five list. And then what we try to do at that point is we reach out to those places, we talk to them about our students and then we see if this is going to be a good fit. So the continuous
partnerships to make sure we're getting the right fit for our student is where we need that additional support. We have partnerships with lots of places that would eagerly take our student and sometimes that's what we do if you know their top three is not something that is going to be a good fit then we call one of our other places and we say hey we have a wonderful student who's going to be a great fit for you do you have room for them this semester
and we get the internships and the practicum set up in that capacity ultimately we'd love to send them somewhere
that they are excited to go and would like to
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
54:59
be in and you mentioned community bakery that's in my district so um that's i'm gonna have to reach out to
them and thank them for that how many students do they
Speaker 75
55:09
have there currently to my knowledge we have two that are currently employed one who's been continuously employed for four years and one who's a seasonal worker for them during their
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
55:17
rush times. Great. Okay. Any other questions, concerns? All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Did you want to say anything? I think Mary Catherine did.
Okay. And my daughter, she's getting after me because she wants me to sign her up for baking classes this summer. Culinary camp. Yes.
Speaker 74
55:39
We have culinary camp. As long as they're 18 or younger, they can sign up and come get some
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
55:46
wonderful stuff. She wants the advanced one with the breads and croissants and stuff. Yes. All right. Thank you.
All right. Next on the
agenda, we have a presentation on supporting lifelong success community. Will you come up? We have Ashton McComb, Mary Ann McIntyre, Betts McCombs, and Ron Cook. If you can introduce yourselves, thank you.
Ashton Mccombs
Unverified
56:39
Good morning. My name is Ashton McCombs. I'm the executive director for SLS
Speaker 106
56:45
Community. Hi, I'm Mary Ann McIntyre. I'm the clinical director for SLS
Speaker 109
56:52
Community. And I'm Betts McCombs, co-founder of SLS Community. Ron Cook.
Ashton Mccombs
Unverified
57:02
right. Thank you so much for the opportunity to present on our programs. I'm going to cover just a broad organizational overview, our future vision.
Marianne is going to cover specific programs. And then Ron and Betts are going to cover personal stories. So SLS community, the SLS stands for Supporting Lifelong Success for Neurodivergent Adults. We are a Fayetteville-founded 501c3 nonprofit. We're a Medicaid waiver service provider, a community support systems provider, which I will get into that provider type later on. Our mission is to support lifelong success for neurodivergent adults and their families by making essential resources accessible to all.
So the big vision that we're building towards is a live, work, play community in Fayetteville where residential, vocational, health and wellness community and clinical resources are accessible and affordable for neurodivergent adults to reach their full potential. We're grounded in just providing opportunities for neurodivergent adults to integrate with the community, flourish, and find their own path to self-actualization. So as part of this vision, it's a partnership with a future development called Cato Springs.
I've got more specific slides on that later on, but integrating housing services, employment opportunities, clinical services, and then community options within the context of this mixed-use development called Cato Springs. Right now, we're early. We're growing into this vision. We have a residential model that's grounded in applied behavior analysis and whole health principles. We have a day program that we're developing, and then we have various community initiatives and advocacy events that I'll cover later on.
So our why, Betts will cover our genesis story a little bit later, But really it was just grappling with these questions that every family that has a loved one with IDD deals with as they go into adulthood. And so the impetus was really that services cliff that can exist in adulthood. Where will they live after high school as they age? Is it a place they feel valued? What will they do with their days? Will they be inspired by their environment? Can they develop skills and get a job harnessing their wonderful, unique skills?
And then who will help to guide them into a healthy lifestyle so they, too, can have best life outcomes. So it really started with parents' search, you know, for answers for some of those questions. And then a lot of these statistics as well that just kind of illustrate the challenges that this population can face in adulthood. Many of these, I'm sure, individuals in this room are familiar with. I won't go through each one, but really we kind of view a lot of these challenges in adulthood as kind of a four-legged stool.
So housing, services, employment, and then just relationships and your natural supports. Really, if you were to take any one of those legs out, the stool is going to topple under people that are oftentimes relying on just SSI for cost of living and housing. Hard to have stable housing based on that. It's hard to hold down a job without stable housing and have the additional income to have stable housing. So they're all kind of interacting.
People get oftentimes their relationships and their network from work. And so I think all these factors interact and are really social determinants of health that are upstream of some issues down the road that can affect health care and all kinds of things. So we kind of have taken that holistic approach about how can we aggregate resources in a way that can help this population in adulthood. The vision that we are building towards is this collaborative partnership with the development team at Cato Springs.
Their mission anchored in SLS's mission of including neurodivergent adults. And so this is a 230-acre development in South Fayetteville. It's just one exit south of MLK Boulevard, if y'all are familiar with Fayetteville, by Kessler Mountain Regional Park. And so it's going to serve NWA broadly. This is not a neurodivergent or disability-only development. But the intent is to have an integrated, inclusive community where approximately 8% of the units will be allocated for neurodivergent adults dispersed throughout the development.
We want to scale as a service provider on this development. And then businesses that come and occupy the retail sites will provide job opportunities for neurodivergent adults. And then access to all the amenities of the development as well. So it's a new urban design. New urbanism is an architectural philosophy that basically facilitates the built environment to support relationships.
neighborliness, walkability. And so that's kind of the grounding of this development team. This has been an economic development project with the city of Fayetteville for some of the funding of the initial infrastructure, the sewer, and then the initial road network throughout the city of Fayetteville and then a federal grant several years ago. So that initial infrastructure is currently under development. We're trying to scale as a service rider in advance of that to grow into the development which will be in a phased
approach over many years 12 to 15 years but I'm anticipated to be 1200 to 1500 units with complementary commercial coffee shops corner stores bodegas and I think a key distinction is this is a community it's it's not a campus and so just want to make very clear this is not a the housing is going to be dispersed and integrated within this inclusive community this is not a place that's away or separate from the community really the the rate of units that were allocating
for neurodivergent adults is approximately the the prevalence rate of IDD amongst the general population we have a collective impact model so we want to bring in partners and kind of leverage this development as a canvas to bring
Ashton Mccombs
Unverified
1:03:37
the different components we're kind of viewing this under live work play themes so the live component is housing there's a real deficit of high quality and affordable housing for
neurodivergent adults integrating that within the community and then the supported residential services which we're growing now and so Cato Springs providing that venue for us to scale employment opportunities we want to attract businesses that that already are in the neurodiversity hiring space but really as a development feature having any business that comes in incentivizing them to employ neurodivergent adults industry
appropriate depending on the company and then kind of bringing them into a business network that we've started now with our supported employment called program supported employment program called program forge that marianne will cover and then uh this is just intended to be a really cool place for anybody to live and so it's it's there's trails mountain biking trails uh the the razorback greenway in northwest arkansas this is really mile zero for the greenway so walkability immersion in nature um access to the kessler
Mountain Regional Park, where a lot of the youth sports are in Fayetteville. All those amenities are things that will serve everyone that's there. Just a couple renders of Cato Springs. I recognize this looks more like Pandora than Washington County. So where we are now, we finished our credentialing journey through the medicaid waiver system last year and so we're starting to expand our census we have a
residential model we have program forge we have growing community events and initiatives and that's our growth campaign is to continue to grow into this development we are nationally credited through the council on quality and leadership that was a prerequisite it for our application to be a community support systems provider, which is a revamped provider type under DHS that basically gives us access to both the CES waiver, community employment
supports waiver, and also the 1915 I waiver, which is the behavioral health waiver. This provider type was revamped around the time we were going through initially the credentialing journey and with our grounding in ABA it seemed like a great fit for future expansion and growth of innovative service models to serve individuals with more complex care needs because it's it's kind of a one-stop shop where you can access both the behavioral health side and then also the CES traditional IDD HCBS services and that's just another slide on kind of the goals of the
cssp program and with that i'll hand it off to maryanne to
Speaker 119
1:06:50
cover some of our programs we're excited to be able to share this with you we're excited
Speaker 106
1:06:57
to be able to share this with you today this is a new program inaugural year uh year first first cohort and we started with four individuals in august we have nine now we think that's pretty big rate increase in a single year The goal is to create individualized state-of-the-art vocational programming.
We're working with community partners to develop resources. We follow the criteria that's established in order to look towards job placement. Some of these people are currently in volunteer positions. We did just have a first person hired out of a volunteer position into a work position about two weeks ago. Quite a hit. we were we were pleased to see that happen um it is an individualized program uh these people
do have specific goals that are developed both by them and along the guidelines i think i'm not great from talking from slides um i think the thing that's important to remember is that we're not time bound so some of these people are going to require different amounts of time to meet the goals that are established. Other programs have specific timelines. We really don't have those. There's discovery stages. There's career discovery. There is a job development plan.
We teach the soft skills. We're not teaching, I loved what Pulaski had to share about culinary. We're not teaching hard skills. We're teaching soft skills. We have some people in our program currently that have been employed but are not employed currently and that's not a skill deficit that that's a soft skill deficit the people that
Speaker 121
1:08:41
we have that have had jobs have the actual technical skills but they lack
Speaker 106
1:08:47
the soft skills we've reached out and are trying to make sure
we have job coaches that are well trained they went through a certification process we have two coaches and we have someone who coordinates that program Heather Henderson she's not here today she's the active on-site coordinator so you know the goal is um next slide Ashton uh we want the workplace to be neurodiverse so we've had some lunch chats with some community partners to try to help agencies understand why would you want what's the value in hiring a neurodivergent
um individual to form a neurodiverse composite within the workplace um so part of that is that we know that there's these people bring specific benefits a lot of people with very specific skills and we have a workforce that needs people with specific skills um so we are based out of a property that's conveniently located at the Cato Springs exit on the Razorback side That was just kind of a really lucky moment.
We're in a building that is under a city grant, and we're able to remain there for several years, we hope, in a space that can accommodate about 20, probably 28 people at any given time. So it's a good space. The overview for residential, we started with residential first, and the goal there is to find a way that people can live long term so they don't have to hop around. They're in a place that's going to meet their needs. It's quality. It's affordable.
We only have a single residence now. It's a female residence in a regular house in a regular neighborhood, and we are teaching life skills out of that. Some of those gals do different things during the day, but they're all learning life skills. We're kind of trying to take the slide. The next slide, I think, is pretty good at displaying. This is kind of our mission. We don't want just a place to live, but we want there to be an integration among health, making sure these people are healthy from a dietary standpoint, from an exercise standpoint,
from a play standpoint. They have specific goals. Those goals are written in a way that considers what their interests are. We do a combination of what's important for them, what's important to them, to try to come up with a consolidated plan, and it's measured by a database system. So we have what we like to consider a pretty highly trained workforce. We have the advantage of being in northwest Arkansas. We have college students sometimes that have worked for us for several years.
We have people that being a direct support professional is their career, and they're dedicated to what they're doing. and so we have a combination of what I would consider to be more professionally geared people and people that this is going to be their profession. That's kind of been a unique aspect. I'm a board-certified behavior analyst, and we run this organization based on behavioral principles. I'm an old speech path. I got my speech path people in the room here. I finally let mine lapse, girl, so if I need somebody, I'm coming for you.
We want to make sure that people understand that applied behavior analysis doesn't pertain to just children. Everybody learns by specific teaching practices. Choice is key in that. Anytime there's choice available, we provide choice. These girls are involved. We created some of our own assessments because assessments are kind of in short supply for the adult population. And one of those is dream casting. So we have an opportunity to find out what would you like to do if you could do anything,
not just in the workplace, but in your life. What would you like to do? That's kind of a dream casting piece. So we consolidate that information into specific goals, and we teach people by those principles. We do have people with challenging behaviors. Several of the people on the staff besides me have worked with people with challenging behaviors. So from a standpoint of being able to maintain people in one place, we have the skills, I think, to take on some more challenging behavioral pieces.
I think I was ahead of myself, wasn't I? One of the biggest problems I think most of you know is that sometimes individuals are not stable in their environment. They do something that ejects them, and sometimes that's pretty rapid. So we're trying to make sure that that's not the case. Those are kind of the behaviors that we deal with. And it's a pretty wide range. You might have figured out that we like the word flourish. We like the grow concept. We even have a garden in the backyard.
But not only that is we know that people grow. And so our treatment plan is called a Bloom Print. It's different than the past is person-centered plan. We do, our plan becomes part of their plan, but ours is much more detailed, and it does take the client's interests and what they want to do, and it's skilled-based and strength-based. So we work alongside the past. We tend to have many more goals than they have, so they tend to take part of ours and put them in, and we work off kind of the remainder of those.
Last couple are just wellness. We're really committed to making sure that people are well, that they're well from every standpoint that we can help them, and that involves working and living successfully. So kind of across these last domains, all of those are considered. Improving communication any way that we can, making sure there's lots of community engagement. They don't stay in the house all day long. these people are out in the community they have volunteer opportunities they do all the things that
everyone else does they just have support to do them a lot of creative activities and there's a whole stream of those that you can read at your leisure I want to let the these people who
Ashton Mccombs
Unverified
1:15:16
real quick wave tops of some of our community initiatives Our biggest community event is the SLS-5K for Neurodiversity. This is on the Cato Springs site down at Kessler Mountain Regional Park, 5K and One Mile Fun Run.
It's in its third year. We do it every November. The theme of this last year's race was Dash Like a Hero. So lots of costumes and a really fun event that we've grown with more vendors and amenities. I think we're over 250 runners and volunteers at this point, so just trying to continue to grow this event. It's a really fun, festive environment. Another initiative that we've collaborated with UAMS Northwest on, who's been a great partner, is the Neurodiversity Healthcare Conference.
This is a conference that we've done in the fall, two years in a row now, And it's grown to a full day conference with speakers that are basically focused on identifying hurdles that neurodivergent patients can face in the health care system and best practices and how to optimize care from a patient facing medical professional standpoint. Things like sensory considerations, process flow, coordination with the DSP staff and the parents and guardians beforehand to kind of eliminate paperwork and all kinds of practical tips was really the focus of this.
this last year's conference dr hunt was our keynote speaker last year just some photos from last year's conference and dr uh alaza green was was also on the panel actually um last year which was was great brought brought a therapeutic dog which was really interesting another initiative is we have a partnership with startup junkie that we started last year that they spearheaded really this is their initiative that we just kind of supported um but um the neurodiversity in the
northwest arkansas workforce um this is a study that's that's modeled off of a uk study basically get the finger on the pulse of neurodiversity in the workforce in nwa so there were surveys that were disseminated to employers hr neurodivergent employees and neurotypical colleagues just to identify strengths things we're doing well and then things that we can improve on as a workforce to create a reference that we can benchmark off of with future studies and can hopefully inform different stakeholders like chambers of commerce municipal officials
and then business leaders and so we just had a launch event two weeks ago with the mayor of Fayetteville and that that study is is live now we do social events pretty regularly so just different things like Halloween parties bingo bonfires magic show all kinds of stuff so just try to facilitate relationships and the cool thing is we've seen a lot of friendships that have that have cropped up in these events so just opportunities
for individuals to get out of the house and meet other people. And so
Speaker 108
1:18:31
with that all, I'll turn it over to Betts. Hi, my name is Betts McCombs. And just some back story on SLS and how we got started. This slide is a picture of my daughter, Anna. And together with my husband, my late husband, we began SLS Community. a few years ago because our daughter has autism but she also lives with complex severe complex
behavior which had at the time had a very limiting effect on what was going to happen with her once she left high school she ended up not being able to graduate from Fayetteville high school she She ended up in a neurobehavioral unit in Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. But we gathered some parents and individuals that either had a neurodivergent loved one
or their lives had been impacted by someone with neurodiversity. But we all had a common denominator of the desire to dream and plan for a better future for our loved ones as they entered adulthood. You know, lots of services and plans for children, but we call that the services cliff after they leave high school. So at the time, what we saw was a very narrow path
with only a few choices and possibilities. The organizations in place were doing a great job, but they're carrying a very heavy load since every neurodivergent person is different, just like neurotypical people. We're all different. One size or a few sizes did not fit all. And this junction into adulthood is where my husband and I saw a huge discrepancy between the possibilities awaiting our other three neurotypical children and what choices were
awaiting Anna's adulthood. Our own journey with her medically took us to many institutions across the country where we met so many struggling families who had the same concerns. We saw firsthand how families were hurting and had become fractured trying to care for that loved one. Each story we encountered made a lasting impact. We had already lived through the limiting isolation of having a different behavioral child at home and how during the darkest days
We were severely limited in the activities we could do outside the home as a family unit. That had a ripple effect inside our home. After Anna was released from two different inpatient stays in Baltimore, we had to move her to Boston to be taken care of by the May Institute in order to maintain stability. There wasn't an appropriate placement for her back here at home. There were limited community-based options for her level of complexity, and it was during that time that we started SLS Community.
We wanted to talk about how we could break down barriers for a dare-we-dream-amazing future to look forward to for her, something that included choices, possibly many choices across the breadth of a lifespan as an adult. I'm talking about different types of housing, ways to live, fun events to look forward to, public places where she or we were welcomed, businesses that would take a chance on hiring someone that needed more help
but most definitely had a unique skill to contribute, even an atmosphere of acceptance where she and others like her could be themselves. We see these all as opportunities and ways to develop God-given talents and free up the barriers that enable an individual to turn those into skills, contributing to society at large. The rest of us get to choose what we spend our days doing that lights us up inside, and we believe that everyone deserves that chance to figure out what their thing is
and find ways to develop and offer that to others. What often happens, however, is that the neurotypical person can gain as much, if not more, when their life brushes up against a neurodivergent person. So today, Anna's days are filled with activities that her caregivers help her choose. She is an active participant in her life choices across her entire day, and that has enabled her to find her voice like never before.
She's quite opinionated, but the difference is that now she has practice knowing and advocating for herself instead of just engaging in problem behavior as a go-to. She is stable and absolutely loves living away from the family home, just like her siblings. She always wanted to be just like them. She volunteers at several local businesses, and that, too, gives her confidence in herself and her abilities. Her behavior challenges are managed by a carefully designed and data-driven process
that is ongoing throughout and across her day, known as ABA therapy. This has been absolutely critical for maintaining a stable environment. Change is made along the way for favorable outcomes so that she can be successful or made. But she is flourishing in spite of her challenges. i'm going to share
Speaker 128
1:24:23
as a board member of sls but right now i'm going to share as a parent of john
and giving you several different images of him in our family over the years from being very young up until more recently as an employee part-time employee at chick-fil-a i put those slides up there i told ashton i wanted to remind the committee that while sls like several providers like sls focus on adults with autism and that's certainly been the focus
of today's conversation they all start as children don't they and we delight in talking about children with autism and and the beautiful photos and the the the moments that we can share but they grow up don't they and the questions that sls organizations like sls are asking and invite our our communities to ask with us is what about our children with autism when they cross over into
adulthood what's going to happen where will they live how will they be supported at home and in community how will they learn the skills to be at home and in community where will they work and how will they pursue those employment opportunities how will they make friends and receive support those are the questions that organizations or providers like SLS are asking and invite our communities to ask in regard to these children who've become adults with autism
as I like to think of it. John is my oldest son. We adopted him as a newborn and we discovered as he was developing that he had intellectual disabilities and eventually had a diagnosis of autism, as well as other intellectual disabilities or diagnoses, that have caused him to demonstrate what I think I got from some therapist some years ago, splintered
skills. It's a fancy way of saying he's really good at some things and not so good at other things, which creates a great opportunity to do good and a great opportunity to get himself in, you know, in harm's way or be taken advantage of. Uh, and so John is, uh, there's so many positives about, uh, John and you can see his mom and my wife and his younger son, uh, younger brother up there as well. Uh, he's, uh, now been able to accumulate a nice little resume, uh, with
about six years of experience, uh, with two Chick-fil-A stores here in West Little Rock and Fayetteville. And of course, he did that with grace and patient support provided by employers who were willing to engage with me and a provider to understand John and what his strengths and weaknesses are. He's been able to accumulate 33 credit hours in college, even to his father's
surprise. But of course, he's done that with lots of support and patience from a whole community of people, both at the community college and the university where he studied, as well as in his home setting. What SLS focuses on is the question of what if a person like John technically, developmentally, qualifies to be institutionalized.
But he or she and their family want him or her to live at home and in community. That's really the question that we're asking and that SLS and organizations like it attempt to answer. How can we help a person like John, who has great capacity, but whose disability-related behaviors, impulsivity, problem-solving skills, lack of socialization skills, not understanding social cues,
All the impairment-related behaviors and limitations that are a result of his, you know, the cognitive impairments that he received before he was born. How can we help young adults like John live in community and experience their family and experience their talents, pursue a goal of being a videographer and photographer like John aspires to become?
And how do we do that while helping them not be taken advantage of in the community? Or, you know, their behaviors harm somebody else? These are important questions, and so SLS has stepped up to join the fray. And a couple of questions that I think about as I close on behalf of telling John's story is really how can we as a society in Arkansas incentivize organizations like SLS to continue to pursue innovation that meets the needs of young adults who have complex needs,
but also great opportunity and potential like Anna and John. How can we incentivize these organizations to be more innovative, to be more site-specific, to train and equip their employees to work effectively at home and in community with their clients like Anna or John? And then second, how can our organizations, How can we work with our organizations as communities to help take down these barriers that continue to exist, where services are not available, that are still needed, even adulthood?
You've heard several times the cliff of services that exists when a person transitions from age 20 to age 21. The needs don't evaporate for a person with a lifetime impairment. So how can we overcome those barriers and provide more services that they need so that they can be successful in the community? We'll all be better. And I know John will be better. And I suspect that he's going to be a blessing to others as we support him and young men and women like him.
So thank you for the opportunity
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:31:44
to comment on John. Thank you. We're happy to answer any questions. Well, thank you for that presentation. And Mr. Cook, we've met before, and hopefully we'll be working on some legislation soon. But you eloquently packaged all that into your presentation, and this is what this committee is here to explore these perplexing issues
that face people with autism. So as we, me and Senator Boyd, as we are on this task force together, that's what we're trying to do, trying to explore different options and trying to see what we can do to make life better for people with autism here in Arkansas. So thank you for your presentation. And I do have a question real quick. So you, with the Cato
Institute, so when is that project slated to be completed?
Speaker 129
1:32:43
I would say, based on the development timeline right now, we're two or three years out from the first phase of leasable units. And the first phase will be largely multifamily. But it's planned to unfold in multiple phases, probably driven by
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:33:01
the market over the course of up to a decade. And you mentioned some of the funding. So you said that you received waivers from the
Speaker 113
1:33:12
federal government and some help from the city of Fayetteville. So the funding for the
Speaker 129
1:33:17
initial infrastructure was a HUD grant that Congressman Womack helped to secure in the 2023 federal budget.
And then there was a city-municipal match. And so the Cato Springs project is founded in this concept of impact for neurodivergent adults. So the funding is tied to that with a clawback provision. But that benefited the Cato Springs development, and then we have this partnership between Cato Springs and SLS. And I have
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:33:48
one more question for you, ma'am. So with your work, what is one of the things that's a hindrance for you to get anything done?
It's something that you wish that you had and don't have. We're a CES
Speaker 106
1:34:18
waiver provider, so I think I wanted to be sure. that that provides services for the individuals both on the supported and the oh my god my finger was off huh you don't hold it oh good good to go um so the ces why we're taking care of that what would i wish for um i think i would i would side with my wither the
previous speakers I think trying to get a larger variety of people in the workforce interested in offering volunteer and work opportunities I think that that that's a hurdle we're working on startup junkie has really helped us in that domain and but but there's I feel like there's a lot lots of options out there that haven't been tapped yet so I think in terms of finding meaningful places whether they volunteer or work i mean a lot of people volunteer before they work but more
opportunities i think that's a huge huge
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:35:13
need you have any questions from
Speaker 84
1:35:20
the task force okay not so much a question but really just a testimony my my child is also benefiting from sls my family is um i'm so glad they were able to come and talk today um they're truly a godsend and i think what i love about the opportunity my child's having nevi um
sls meets families where they are and they meet the person where they are and it's just um it's providing dignity and hope and i think that's something i'm the most uh appreciative of so if i can be an advocate in any way and answer questions i'm fully um wanting to
Speaker 106
1:36:00
do that too I think my other vote is I would like to see replication in other places. I mean, I think that I was there with Susie traveling the state.
I'm well aware that some areas are better served than others. And so I think one of our missions has been if we can develop a system that works, we're happy for other people to learn. And so that's not
Speaker 121
1:36:24
something that's only available in certain areas. I think that's a huge
Speaker 56
1:36:36
need. tell me um because there's such a high need for bcbas to provide the oversight of the services
how do you deliver or support or write the programs that are delivered with integrity and quality and because it's hard to get the funding approved the for the older individuals how what's your challenge there wow am i glad
Speaker 106
1:37:00
that you asked that question i didn't even plant that um i think we we have about four or five of our staff are registered behavior technicians now that doesn't help us in arkansas because you can't bill under that code anyway um i i think i had
an opportunity to come with ron to speak to the legislature earlier about adult services and And that piece needs to be addressed. I think anybody who's been in this field very long, you've grown up with these individuals and you know what the need is. And so other states are ahead of Arkansas in making that a viable possibility. And that is a pretty critical need because you can't—CES waiver does cover, you know, services,
but the level of high support needs is not adequately covered unless you're going to cover, and I don't think it should be just autism. I think autism and related disabilities that require a high level of support in adulthood need to have, you know, more support around that. I've lived in five states. Some of them do it better than others, and we all can move forward. so yeah that's a huge that's a huge need we we do we do pay the registered behavior techs more than
we pay our regular staff I mean slightly more a dollar more an hour which is a lot in the DSP world because they have those principles um and they require a different level of supervision which is also kind of a that's a load as well but anything I think this is the group that could help and get autism identified past past 21 yeah i'll just add
Speaker 129
1:38:54
i think one thing that we're working on
is we'd like to leverage the cssp designation primarily right now we're billing under ces waiver but the cssp designation with the access to the behavioral health waiver there are enhancements that you can get intensive and enhanced and so we're we're looking at that and some of the other billing codes that may allow more of a value-based reimbursement uh system for people with more complex care needs so uh if i might
Speaker 128
1:39:33
um the the way um i we've experienced community-based services through the ces waiver is my son has direct support professionals or staff that are funded through Arkansas Medicaid CES waiver. They're employees of a provider like SLS. But our challenge has been kind of on the ground as those direct support professionals are just critical to my son's daily experience, right?
If a family member is not with them, they're with them, with him. The challenge is in our current environment, I've never experienced where our direct support professionals are actually prepared and trained and supported appropriately based on my son's strengths and weaknesses. And so if the direct support professional staff are the critical link to working with my son on an hour-by-hour basis, and the organization that employs them is not incentivized to train them and to support them through ongoing communication, site-specific training.
who is John and what are his strengths, where are his challenges, what are his triggers, what are his goals. If the provider is not incentivized to train these direct support professionals, then it's a real weak link. The role of ABA therapy has been, up until my son became too old to receive funding through Medicaid for ABA, The ABA therapist was providing consultation and guidance to the direct support professionals who were working with my son.
That's been taken away in his adulthood. And so the challenge for my son is having appropriate trained staff. And I don't really necessarily know what the questions are. But the way I put it is, how do we incentivize providers and support them appropriately as a state so that direct support professionals that go in the home of my son are properly prepared, properly trained, and properly supported so they can have a good outcome and so my son can have a good outcome?
That's a big question that I wrestle with, and that's how I see the role of a BCBA or ABA therapy playing an important
Speaker 108
1:42:25
role in adulthood. Well, I might just add, as I said, my daughter wouldn't even live here if she wasn't getting services at her age. She's 30 through SLS community. So we started it because we knew from her inpatient stays that ABA therapy was the gold standard for her.
Her behavior is very complex and also very destructive to herself. So now she is stable, and that's not just because she has ABA therapy. It's a whole wide range, but that's the starting point of the trained staff that are constantly trained and retrained on how her program changes, and it's complex.
But she lives a mile from me, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for that. It's a serious problem.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:43:36
all right well thank you again for your presentation and please come back at any given time
if you want to visit us if you want to present any other stuff on our future agenda please let us know
Okay, and other business. I'd like to mention before I let Senator Boyd speak. Saturday is the Autism Walk here in Little Rock at War Memorial. It starts at 7.30, I believe, and goes to 1. That's an annual event, and I
just wanted to remind everybody about that. thank you uh
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
1:44:26
representative in it madam co-chair uh so first of all i've got three things that i
just want to mention here so first of all april 30th in fort smith at the bakery district there's going to be an autism works event uh it starts at i believe 7 30 and goes until 5 and it there is you do have to register and so on and so forth but if anybody has any interest in that it looks to be a good event uh the second thing is for miss washington could we get some information at our next committee meeting on how to get appointed to this task force so that we can just
let the public know because we've gotten a couple emails about it and and it might be easier rather than people wondering if we just include it in a meeting because we're people
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
1:45:17
doing a lot of great things in the state of arkansas we had a great presentation today i was excited to hear that but we always have to balance that with okay the wall street journal had articles on investigative issues with the aba and so i think that we do
need to have a discussion about what we're doing right in arkansas and are there opportunities to to do that because again if we're if we have people who are abusing the system that affects people who are trying to do the right things right and we only have so many dollars to go around So if we can think through a way to include a good discussion on that at a meeting before the end of the year, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Remarks from the Chairs in Recognition of Autism Awareness Month
C. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the January 13, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit C]
D. Presentation on University of Arkansas’s Programs Supporting Students with Autism and Other Disabilities [Exhibit D]
E. Presentation on University of Arkansas – Pulaski Technical College’s 3D Program [Exhibit E]
F. Presentation on the Supporting Lifelong Success (SLS) Community [Exhibit F]
G. Other Business
H. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
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Ashton Mccombs
Unverified
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Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
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