I’m excited to announce that the 2018 Autism Awareness Month Faith Based Initiative is underway! We are recruiting churches to join our award-winning autism awareness ministry and we would love for you to join us!

Since 2016, the initiative has served 23 churches and over 5500 people! Our goal is for every person with autism and their family to have a welcoming church in their local area. We seek to do this by encouraging churches all over the world to do at least one activity for autism awareness month in April.

Here’s how you can join us!

Before your activity

• Get approval. Tell your church leadership about the initiative. After everything is approved, please let me know. I will email you a toolkit that includes a welcome letter, activity ideas, program details, testimonials and an evaluation form. I will also send you a few additional handouts about autism.
• Pick a person of contact (POC). I will communicate directly with your PoC to provide support and guidance for your activity. The POC will be invited to join a private Facebook Group in which all of the churches connect and share ideas. I also share resources and important information about the initiative with this group.
• Choose an activity. I have a list of ideas that I can provide for you. Some of the ideas include: sharing facts about autism in the announcements, creating a bulletin board or display table, starting a special needs ministry, teaching about autism in children’s church and more! I have templates and resources available for almost any activity, so you don’t even have to do much work! You are also free to choose your own activity, as long as it promotes autism awareness, acceptance and inclusion.
• Set a date for your activity. Your activity must take place in April, which is autism awareness month! Make sure that date is a good fit for your congregation. For example, April 1, 2018 probably isn’t a good date for your activity because that is Easter Sunday! Most churches already have activities scheduled for that day.

On the day of your activity

• Have fun! Learning doesn’t have to be boring!  Try to share your activity in a way that is engaging and encourages respectful dialogue.
• Take pictures of your activity! The pictures can be taken with a cell phone or with a professional DSLR camera. Whatever is most convenient for you, works for me!
• Count the number of people participating! How many people heard the announcement about autism awareness? How many children learned about autism in children’s church? About how many people stopped by your display table? Keep track because this number will be used on your evaluation form.

After your activity

• Email to me your pictures and completed evaluation form. Your evaluation form is a short two-page form that is in your toolkit. Be sure to email everything to me by May 4, 2018.  Most churches send in their information right after their activity.
• Receive thanks! Churches that complete the initiative will receive a letter of thanks, a certificate of participation and advertisement of their participation on my social media networks!

That’s it! Isn’t that simple? By the way, did I mention that participation in this autism awareness ministry is FREE?!

Click here to sign up and I will be in touch with you soon! Thank you for joining with me to make our faith based communities more autism friendly!

Tonya