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This episode builds upon the previous three episodes that highlighted themes of race, neurodiversity, disability and community policing. In this episode, we discuss the talk about race that many black parents give to their children in an attempt to better protect them for the world ahead.

Through the eyes of three different black parents of autistic children, each provides a vulnerable and real look into their parenting philosophies and how they either went about or will go about discussing race with their autistic children. The view points are varied, told through the lens of a mother and two fathers and also explained through the perspectives of an autistic parent and two neurotypical parents.

One parent believes in starting this talk from an extremely early age while another has chosen to wait until later on in childhood. There is wisdom throughout and we are grateful for their rich contributions.

There are references to terms in this episode that are common in the autism community like stimming, masking and social stories. If you are not familiar with such terminology, feel free to click on any of the terms to gain a better understanding of what they all mean.

James Mosely is the first interview in the episode and can be reached on Instagram @1autistic_perspective and on his site.

Camille Proctor is the next interview in the episode and you can reach her at the Color of Autism website and here.

Johnathon Briggs is the final interview. He can be reached at his site Fatherhood at Forty, and here.

If you like what you hear, please leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or any other podcast platform you may be listening to this episode on!

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This episode builds upon our previous episode on community policing with autism and disability inclusion in mind. For this episode, Sergeant Charles Heasley, of the Plano, TX Police Department, provides a deeper understanding into community policing practices through the eyes of mental health, which includes how the Department trains its force to interact with members of the autism and intellectually disabled communities who may be experiencing a crisis of some kind, including mental health challenges. In this interview, he provides listeners to his initial impression of community policing and its strong social work component, deeper explanations of some of the policing programs catered to neurodiverse and/or intellectually disabled individuals, challenges that lay ahead and lessons learned along the way.

To get full context, it is strongly encouraged to listen to the two episodes immediately before this one, if you haven't done so already.

Here are some of the links below to some of the references made in this episode.

https://www.texascit.org/

https://www.collincountytx.gov/probate/Pages/default.aspx

http://pdf.plano.gov/1167/Take-Me-Home-Program

https://mypossibilities.org/

https://www.lifepathsystems.org/

22KILL Organization Helping Veterans | Programs & Therapies

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In Season 2, Episode 6 of the NYMA Podcast, we discuss interactions between law enforcement and members of the neurodivergent and intellectually disabled communities through more than one perspective. The episode picks up a bit from where it left off and includes personal narratives of various ways upon which my brother has had interactions with the police and concerns our family has for the next generation of neurodivergent children as they navigate their formative years when it comes to hoping that they come across law enforcement and community members that are understanding.

Another perspective will come through the eyes of a retired police sergeant and father of a son on the autism spectrum. Sergeant A.D. Paul is credited with starting a crisis intervention unit with neurodiversity in mind.

He believes that his nearly 30 year career is all part of his purpose and candidly walks you down the path of how he became nationally recognized for community policing with an emphasis on accommodating brains that are different. Juggling a role like that and the challenges of raising a son on the spectrum with the need for community supports is also highlighted.

Finally, Sergeant Paul discussed how he went about passing the baton to Sergeant Charles Heasley, the current head of the Plano Police Department's Crisis Intervention Unit, and our guest for our follow up episode.Plano Police Sgt. A.D. Paul Testifies on Capitol Hill - YouTube
Take Me Home Program | Plano, TX - Official Website

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In Season 2, Episode 5 of the NYMA podcast, we address the intersectionality of race and disability in America through the eyes of personal accounts. I interviewed my own brother, Wale, about his police stop when he was a teenage boy driving around our little brother, Kunle, also a teenager at the the time.

For those of you who have already been following us on social media and via this podcast, you are aware that Kunle is autistic with an intellectual disability. He is also non-verbal. One of his favorite pastimes, up until this current day, is to be driven around. It typically calms him and has been used countless times to ease his mind by not only Wale, but my parents, various aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends and me.

It would be one day when two teenage black boys, one neurotypical and one with special needs, chose to drive around their own neighborhood. It would be Wale's first traffic stop that would give him pause, make him feel uncomfortable and wonder about his future... it would not be his last as he grew up and eventually became a black man. It would be what happened after his first traffic stop that taught us all valuable life lessons that we would take with us for decades.

Emotional bruises were formed and this story wouldn't be revealed to my parents until much, much later in life. Perhaps it was simply because we didn't want to add on to their stress, but we chose to internalize, until we couldn't anymore.

For more information that addresses issues related to the intersectionality of race , neurodiversity and/or disability, check out The Color of Autism Foundation. For more information on sibling support groups, check out the National Autism Foundation for some more information.

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You want love and marriage advice? You want to learn about a particular couple's marriage philosophy? You may get a million answers. But, in Season 2, Episode 4 of the NYMA podcast, we take you down this road through the eyes of a candid neurodiverse couple, a husband and wife, based in the UK.

For those of you following us on social media and via the podcast, you will recognize one of the voices, Lee Corless, who I spoke with in the immediate previous episode. In this episode, he is back with us, along with his wife Jeanette. Given their neurodiversity, they speak about how they learned to communicate properly with one another, what they learned about themselves by being married to the other, raising neurodiverse children and much more.

We conducted this interview via Zoom and sometimes with laptop audio only, so there may be patches where the audio quality is not what you are used to. We apologize for those technical difficulties, but do hope you still enjoy the universal relationship advice this couple so beautifully shared.

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In Season 2, Episode 3 of our podcast, we address the high unemployment rate of adults with autism and the corporate inclusion efforts that have since risen up to combat this societal problem. Solutions to this issue involve a multi-faceted array of stakeholders.

This episode focuses on neurodiversity inclusion efforts of major corporations; future episodes will eventually get into areas like community partners that train some individuals to be ready for such jobs, etc.

We were honored to have interviewed Lee Corless, Vice President at JPMorgan Chase, based in the UK. Through the firm's Autism at Work program, he helps to lead diversity and inclusion efforts in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region as well as Asia Pacific. He speaks on his own later in life autism diagnosis, raising his son who is also on the spectrum, current inclusion efforts and what he sees the future to be in this area ( and so much more).

For some preliminary research on autism employment efforts and some approaches to improvement, please refer to some of the following sites. We hope you enjoy the episode. In the meantime, take care.

U.S. Department of Labor
Spectrum News
Autism Speaks
Society of Human Resources Management
Forbes
University of Pennsylvania

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In Episode 2, Season 2 of NYMA, two moms of children with special needs, Betsy and Tracey, speak to their triumphs and challenges associated with starting and/or expanding business in the midst of a global pandemic while balancing motherhood, a full-time job and/or kids' various therapy treatments.

Both women talk about the way in which their children's special needs present themselves individually in each child, how their business ideas first occurred to them and where their business growing in 5 years.

Regardless of the particular challenge presented on any given day, both Betsy and Tracey make the proactive decision to put one foot in front of the other. They are resilience in action.

For more information on Miles to Row, check out Betsy on IG @milestorow and at the website https://.milestorow.com .

For more information on Thriving on the Spectrum, check out Tracey on Facebook and Instagram at @thrivingonthespectrum and on their website at https://.thrivingonthespectrum.org.

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Thanks to registered dietician Brittyn Coleman , MS, RDN/LD, CLT , this episode focuses on some of the many dietary considerations that may be made in determining what is the best diet so that some people on the spectrum can increase their quality of life.

In this episode, we first talk about GI issues discovered in the earlier days of our daughter's autism journey. After thinking that these challenges were properly addressed, we discovered recently that this was not quite the case. We realized the need to add a dietician to our medical team in order to properly address issues concerning the gut, especially in light of an understanding of the gut-brain connection, was important to her development as she continued to age.

Brittyn drops many nuggets of wisdom on how families can start learning how to optimally feed the body with neurodiversity in mind. Her website is available here and she is also available on Instagram at @autismdietitian.

Earlier on in the episode, references are made to the Cleveland Clinic's explanation of the gut-brain connection, available on their website.

Brittyn also referenced the following companies when discussing supplements: Seeking Health , Klaire Labs, Pure Encapsulations and Designs for Health.

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In our Season Finale of NYMA, we take you into midst of the pandemic through the eyes of a family that needs significant community supports in order to thrive. When parts of your community supports are impacted by the type of virus almost nobody was alive to see the last time this happened, the status quo becomes a casualty on the road to the "new normal".

This episode details one family's account of the year never to be forgotten while still exhibiting persistence and resilience along the way. Whether it be a breakdown in services to a child with special needs to spectacularly failing at administering special education virtually without the requisite education or experience to ending up in the hospital, this family rolled with the punches and continues to do so. One. Day. At. A. Time.

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Episode 8 of the NYMA podcast takes listeners on the road down an uncomfortable subject to many...money...particularly financial and estate planning. It's the intersection of where money can meet the future. In our case, it's the intersection of where money can meet the future, but with an asterisk. Sometimes, the day to day stresses of life can prevent you from achieving attainable long-term goals that can set your family up for the future. Our family had to shift our mindset from in the now to thinking more generationally. So, this episode dictates just some of what we had to take into consideration when we realized that our plans may need plans.

A high level conversation on estate planning with attorney Christina Thomas is included, who is licensed in DC and Maryland. For more information about legal services she could potentially provide in this space, check out https://eplfirm.com/.

As this episode states at the beginning, the content in this episode is not meant to replace legal and/or financial advice customized to one's own individual needs provided by attorneys and other professionals as it relates to estate planning or financial planning.

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