BENNINGTON -- United Counseling Services of Bennington County held its last in a series of three community autism forums on Thursday. The forums will help the agency's mental health professionals gear new autism programming and services to the needs of area children and families.
The Vermont legislature enacted a law related to insurance coverage for autism diagnosis in 2011, which was based on research that supported the need for early detection, diagnosis and treatment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, ages 21 and under.
This year, that law was expanded with Act 158, which will give UCS a greater ability to bill for services for children with ASD. UCS now may also provide those services and parental support within the home, using behavioral interventions.
The newly bolstered law makes it so that private insurance companies reimburse for those ASD treatment services that they were not covering previously. It has also set aside a small portion of funds for UCS to initiate some of those services.
In order to assume the most fitting services and interventions for the individuals in its service area, UCS created the community autism forums to gauge the needs of children and families. The forums gave parents of children with autism a chance to speak about their struggles. They were also intended to initiate public discourse on autism sensitivity and to bring about support services that may already be available.
UCS requires Applied Behavioral Analysts to begin offering services and treatment to clients and children with autism, though many of them may already be receiving support from staff.
After the law passed, UCS sent two of its counselors to training to become ABA certified. UCS director of youth and family services Lorna Mattern said that community feedback from the forums has made it clear that parents cannot wait until the training is finished for services to be initiated. To address that concern, UCS will be hiring an autism specialist in the coming weeks.
In assessing the forum discussions, Mattern said there is still much to consider.
"We also recognize that greater attention needs to be placed on transition issues for children with autism," she said. "Communication and collaboration with existing service providers needs to be enhanced in order to have a more seamless service system. Finally, collaboration with public safety and its response to emergencies with children with autism is needed in order to help support each other and the families."
Currently, about 1 in 68 children are or will be identified with an autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. Autism diagnoses are up from about 1 in 150 children in 2002.
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UCS finishes autism community forum