The Choctaw Nation and its education programs join the voices speaking up for autism awareness
Durant, Okla.– A new Muppet named Julia, a hyper-intelligent theoretical physicist named Sheldon, and a professor of animal science named Temple Grandin, what do they have in common? They all play a role in the social wave of autism awareness and education currently sweeping across the U.S.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) joined this movement with a new initiative and an autism conference called the Coming Together Summit.
The conference, held on Oct. 15 at the Choctaw Grand Event Center in Durant, brought nationally renowned speaker Eustacia Cutler in to share her story and answer questions from attendees. Booths also populated the event floor, offering resources and information.
Many in attendance were individuals impacted by the neurodevelopmental disorder: family, caretakers, teachers, and those falling on the autism spectrum themselves.
“I think it gave parents, guardians, brothers, sisters, all comfort to know they aren’t alone. They don’t have to walk this journey by themselves,” Rebecca Hawkins, Education Director for CNO and conference coordinator said.
Hawkins brought Cutler in to speak, knowing she raised a child with autism herself. She spoke from a place of understanding, having raised daughter Temple Grandin at a time when autism was even less understood.
The importance of a network for support was a topic Cutler touched on while addressing the crowd in the Choctaw Grand Theater.
“I was passed from one person to another. I was only 20 when Temple was born,” Cutler said. “I had to fumble along, and am very grateful to these people” she said, mentioning the friends, teachers, and doctors who supported her.
And according to Hawkins, playing a role of support is exactly what CNO and its education programs aim to do, and are doing.
“We were seeing more children coming into our programs who have characteristics of the autism spectrum,” Hawkins said. “We are collaborating with our schools, collaborating with our families, bringing it all together for the betterment of the child.”
She said the Choctaw education programs cannot be the only support made available, but they are willing to pull all the appropriate resources together for these families, and prepare caretakers working for the tribe to best interact with and teach children falling on the spectrum.
But, the issue is larger than one interaction. Both Hawkins and Cutler explained autism impacts families, schools, and entire communities. The more people who understand autism, the better off we all are. This is where autism education and awareness become necessary.
“The most important thing is we are trying to do is create awareness,” Choctaw Chief Gary Batton said.
He said since becoming chief, he has received calls, emails, and has been stopped out in the communities prompting him to wonder: just how big of an issue is this for us?
According to Hawkins, in regards to our native communities, the answer is pretty big.
“One of the things we found was there are very few resources [tribal or otherwise] available to our families,” she said, pointing out how distanced families in the Choctaw Nation are from major research and treatment centers for autism—resources found mostly in big cities like Dallas or Tulsa.
“There are very few studies on minorities as a whole, and we are not finding any research on Native Americans,” Hawkins added. “Hopefully we can get some kind of research or studies done, so we have information to work with.”
The hurdles become clear, for families with autistic members living inside of the Choctaw Nation or other tribes in more rural areas: Autism is not well understood for our people, and help is not close enough to the people who need it.
But there is hope.
Cutler spoke words of encouragement for caretakers. “There are no precise answers to any of this. There are only choices. You will change them and you will be changed by them. You will get better with choices as you go along,” she said.
And leaders within the Choctaw Nation are dedicated to raising awareness and taking action, while finding practical solutions to the problems at hand.
“I don’t claim to have all the answers,” Hawkins said. “But I do know one thing, there is nothing being done and something’s got to be done, and that’s just the bottom line.”
For CNO, getting something done in regards to autism began back in 2012, when Angela Dancer, Sr. Director of Home Visitation and Disability Services with the Outreach Department got the ball rolling. She played a vital role in initiating the Choctaw Nation Tribal Early Learning Initiative, or TELI.
TELI brought in a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help develop collaboration between early childhood programs within CNO. These programs included Head Start, Early Head Start, Child Care Assistance, and Tribal Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting.
As a group, these programs decided to dedicate attention to better serving children with special needs. And after noticing the prevalence of autism diagnoses with the children they worked with, their attention moved to autism awareness and education.
This led to a widespread effort by the CNO head start centers in each of the districts to teach their communities about autism, during Autism Awareness Month last April.
Some of the head starts and daycares worked together, some reached out to the community, and some got the local public schools involved. There were balloon releases, public speakers, and stories on local media. Each center decided what would spread the word best for their area.
Ultimately, the TELI initiative also made the “Coming Together Summit” on autism possible. It will be what makes the upcoming event, bringing in Grandin to speak on Dec. 17, available to the public. Grandin, a professor and author, is a well-known advocate of autism education and animal rights in the livestock industry. In 2010, a movie starring Claire Danes was made about her life.
At the ground level of the issue, CNO employees like Hawkins are in the planning stages of aiding families directly, uncovering ways to bring assistance to them inside of Choctaw Country.
“Here in southeastern Oklahoma, one of the things I am doing with this initiative is trying to find the resources we can bring down to our area,” Hawkins said. She explained, these resources might be bringing professionals and counselors into Choctaw communities. It might be utilizing the conection to animals some children with autism seem to have.
“We have just begun,” Hawkins said. “We don’t have all of the answers. We just know there aren’t a lot of resources in this area. So it comes back down to educating, making aware, that’s what this whole effort is. It is opening the door for us to start asking questions, start getting answers.”
To get tickets for the upcoming summit where Temple Grandin will speak, visit ticketmaster.com. Additionally, schools and large groups can contact Kelli Brown at 800-522-6170 ext. 4618.