July 2008 Newsletter

Upcoming Meetings

Our July meeting will be a picnic for families next Sunday, July 13 at the McFadden's in Bristol from 1-4.   It's not too late to plan to attend.  Please RSVP to Lee at 860-589-0097.   We're asking families to bring a salad / desert / side dish to share.  We'll provide the rest, including activities for the kids.  We're getting an inflatable 'jump house' to satisfy all those kids on sensory diets!

The picnic takes the place of the meeting normally held at the end of this month. 

We're currently planning the 2008-2009 meeting schedule.  If you have any suggestions for speakers or topics, please let us know.  

Announcements

The Connecticut State Legislature passed three bills relating to services for autistic individuals this year and the last two were recently signed by Governor Rell.   One of the bills requires insurance companies to provide a certain level of coverage for some autism therapies. The second bill requires several State agencies to collaborate and put in place programs for teachers on appropriate methods for educating students on the autism spectrum.  The Governor previously signed a bill expanding the State's pilot program for providing services to adults with autism. 

Several state colleges and universities are already moving forward with programs for teachers.  St. Joseph College recently received approval for it's Autism Certificate Program for teachers and Central Connecticut State University is offering several courses for credit and Continuing Education Units.  Both schools are taking a lead in improving education for students on the autism spectrum in Connecticut.  Let you children's teachers know about these programs.  We usually have brochures at meetings.

The Autism Society of Connecticut (ASCONN) recently donated a large number of books to the Connecticut State Library System.  ASCONN's web site has a list of books donated this year and in previous years.   All books are available to any state resident with a library card.  Your town library will make arrangements for transfer of books from other libraries in the state for you to borrow.  

Conferences

We have not yet started receiving information on conferences for the fall and spring but will post them on the web site when we do.

Other Resources

We encourage all families to explore the services and programs offered by other organizations in Connecticut.  The largest and most active organizations are the Connecticut Autism Spectrum Resource Center, The Autism Society of Connecticut, and The Connecticut Families for Effective Autism Treatment.  All of these organization have resources or support groups focused on supporting autistic individuals and their families. 

 Email Problems

We've found that some Internet Service Providers are flagging the FAVAN newsletters as spam.  We know that AT&T / SBC / Yahoo's email service is often flagging the messages as spam and placing them in a "junk mail" folder.  You need to ready your mail via their on-line mail service and look in the junk folder to find them.  We're looking at ways of avoiding this but it's largely outside our control.  As a precaution, adding info@favan.org to your address book or "whitelist" in your email system may help prevent this in the future.  If you're reading this on the web site and wondering why you have not received newsletters via email, this could be the reason.