Local District Community Support Projects

Project ACCESS has created a "One-hour Inservice" for distribution to schools.  This inservice cover takes an hour to present and covers the basic characteristics of autism. It is designed for a local school staff to deliver to other school staff or to the community.  It covers the basics of the characteristics of autism and is intended to grow awareness, acceptance, and accommodation for the local neurodiverse community.  The person who delivers the inservice should be knowledgeable about autism and will need to be approved by Project ACCESS.  All In-district Autism Consultants, all Missouri Autism Consultants, and completers of our Project ACCESS Autism Program, and any participants we have earned at least one stripe on our Pathways program automatically qualifies.  Othe folks may qualify to access the materials as well.  

The packet includes a presentation, a video, handouts, and resources that can be shared with bus drivers, nutrition workers, safety officers, parents, churches, and any government or civic organization in your area.  

If you would like to apply to get the packet, please reach out to Project ACCESS at projectaccess@missouristate.edu. 

Drexel University in Philadelphia has a research project in their Autism Institute that studies life course outcomes for people with autism. They analyzed epidemiological data from state vocational rehabilitation services and federal social security disability services and reached some conclusions that beg for improvements.  Students who have autism who are transitioning to adult lives do not fare as well as any of other categories of special education in terms of independence and employability.  

One indicator of future success in this area are positive early experiences (during high school) integrating into employment environments.  Springfield School District in Springfield Missouri operates a program they call BASE.  BASE stands for Business Associated Student Education.  BASE has been very successful in achieve employment integration during high school.  Project ACCESS teamed up with Dr. Loni Leforce at SPS to develop guidelines for people interested in developing a BASE program in their district.  

If interested, you can start your research here and when you are ready, Project ACCESS can provide you with a packet of materials.  Good luck!

• BASE: Frequently Asked Questions
• BASE General Information
• BASE Blueprint

Please reach out to Project ACCESS at projectaccess@projectaccess.org to get the packet and to get in touch with an expert. 

Are you the parent or teacher of a student with autism?  Do you need to find an autism friendly dentist or barber/stylist?  Are you trying to find sensory friendly activities for students with autism in your community?  This year Project ACCESS is working on creating a system that collects local "crowd sourced resources" that community members can submit on a Google Form that will auto-populate pins on a Google Map. 

We would like to recruit one or more person(s) from each district to help us:

• Distribute the resource form and help us get the word out.
• Help identify outdated resources for pruning from time to time.
• Help us identify spam submissions by checking local resources.
• Be a point person for adding your own locale's resources. 

Since there is overlap between districts in terms of resources, we decided to make a single map.  If you sign your school up, when you get a few pins on your local region, we will create a hyperlink for your area that zooms in and centers on your location.  

To become a school liaison, please fill out the autism community resources liaison registration link (there can be more than one per area/district).

Community members can view the map or upload their own suggestions for the map by visiting the Project ACCESS Community Resource Submission and Map page. 

For more information, please reach out to Project ACCESS at projectaccess@missouristate.edu.