The Autism Action Partnership has partnered with MMI to distribute free Big Red Safety Box Toolkits to MMI families.
“The Autism Action Partnership received a grant from National Autism Association and received more than 1,000 boxes to provide to families,” said Katy Menousek, Ph.D., assistant professor in the MMI Department of Psychology. “We had been referring families to them for the boxes, so the AAP reached out to us to serve as a pickup site.”
The boxes contain items such as:
- Caregiver checklists;
- A Family Wandering Emergency Plan (FWEP);
- A first-responder profile form for parents to complete and provide to their local law enforcement agencies;
- Five affordable safety tools; and
- Other safety and planning resources.
“Children whose families receive boxes have to have a diagnosis of autism, and they have to have a history of elopement, or wandering — leaving the house where the parents wouldn’t know that they had left,” said Maggie Neujahr, a social worker in the MMI Department of Developmental Medicine.
“We’ve had a couple of families that have used these boxes in the past,” Dr. Menousek said. “Probably the best thing in here are the door alarms. You put them on the windows and doors so the parent can be notified by a ding or beep if the child opens the door.”
Dr. Menousek, Neujahr and the parent resource coordinators have been handing out the boxes, and parents have been appreciative, they said.
They also have contacted Josh Turek, Ph.D., in Norfolk and Nancy Foster, Ph.D., in Kearney to make boxes available to their client families if needed.