Peggy Schaefer Whitby, University of Arkansas assistant professor of special education, has received a $150,000 grant to assist families of children with autism spectrum disorders.

"Project Connect" based in the College of Education and Health Professions will include several initiatives to reach families throughout Arkansas.

Whitby serves as an Act Early Ambassador for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program to identify warning signs of autism and other development disabilities. She also teaches in the Master of Education in Special Education program and graduate certificate programs for autism spectrum disorders and applied behavior analysis. She is a board-certified behavior analyst.

The grant, which provides $75,000 per year over two years, was awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Arkansas is a rural state with high poverty that results in barriers to adequate health care and increased health risk factors, Whitby said.

"Despite known and measurable benefits of early intervention, many children experience delays in receiving diagnostic evaluations and accessing needed services," she said. "Contributing factors to the delay are limited workforce trained to diagnosis ASD and provide interventions, fragmented and underutilized referral, and community-based service that lack coordination with stakeholders."

The work she will do with the grant addresses all three contributing factors, Whitby said. The goals and objectives:

• Create a family resource center to provide support materials for families including the Learn the Signs, Act Early materials; to provide a hotline number for families seeking services; and to provide referrals to families for screening, diagnosis and interventions based on family needs, location and service eligibility.
• Work with statewide stakeholders to develop a flow chart mapping out how people can access autism services statewide and disseminate the map to appropriate agencies and state partners.
• Create a statewide resource guide that lists both private and public service providers of services for children with autism spectrum disorders.
• Conduct First Steps training across the state to include creating a training module for families and developing training sites and partners across state regions. First Steps Training is for families whose child has recently been diagnosed with autism and they do not know what to do or how to proceed.

Schaefer Whitby will collect data about the families who contact the resource center to determine whether they are accessing services in the state. A program director will be hired to run day-to-day operations of the center and a board of directors will be established to assist with statewide coordination.