Accept Believe and Change Impact Statement

With the rate of Autism on the rise and the increased awareness of special needs in the United States, the attention to early intervention becomes more urgent. The CDC, the American Medical Association, and the National Institute of Mental Health have all recognized that the early impact on a child with special needs is detrimental to a child’s developmental health if he or she has been diagnosed as such.

However, the attention that has been given to early intervention in the United States has been far less than adequate. The issue has been left up to a system that is over burdened, under trained, and bureaucratic. The average waiting list to evaluate a child diagnosed with a special need is 18 months. Since a special need like Autism isn’t diagnosed until at least 18 months of age, and the critical window for intervention is before the age of 5, time is of the essence. Making an 18-month waiting list, not only a stressful time for families, but a loss of precious time.

With families spending up to 150 thousand dollars to get help for there special needs child, the phrase “time is money” is a gross understatement. Since “special needs” never has a one size fits all solution, most of the money spent is just on individual research to see what is right for their child. A $3,000 communication devices that might work well for one child, might not work well for another child that happens to have the same affliction. It’s not usual for a parent to go through 3 or 4 machines before finding the right one.

That’s why we came up with a communication device library, where we will have a collection of donated and purchased and equipment that parents can have on loan, while they evaluate their child’s usage.

Accept Believe and Change NFP will not only be dedicated to helping these children and their families, but we will also raise awareness within our community especially within schools and community leaders. Most importantly help the families to let them know they are not alone and help is available. Because if you ask any parent of any “special needs” child, their most overwhelming feeling is the feeling of being alone. Since we all come from a generation that used to institutionalize “special needs” children, the parents that now care for these children have no one to turn to. Parents we should call “heros” are being ignored.

Accept Believe and Change NFP has plans to build a early intervention center that will hire an evaluator that will work with schools, have multi-sensory “snoezelen” rooms that will be therapeutic for special needs children, build a communication device library to reduce families costs, and develop communication software that can be used by “special needs” children of ages.

If you believe in our cause, and you know a child with a special need and you know they're family is struggling... please, we urge to donate. Even if it's a few dollars, either send a check or hit the donate button at the bottom of every page in our website.

Make checks payable to:
Accept Believe and Change NFP
PO Box 331
Plainfield, IL. 60544

Thank you,
John Rose, CPA
Life is about the journey, not the destination
john.rose@acceptbelieveandchange.org