Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Able Talks aims to bridge gap for young adults with disabilities
Nancy Wells, founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization Able Talks, had a very specific, personal reason for creating the group that strives to provide continuing education for young adults with autism and other disabilities. Her daughter, Molly, is autistic, and Wells realized there was a large gap in Molly’s education when she turned 21 and returned home from school to live.
“In the autism world, there’s a catchphrase — ‘the drop-off point,’” she explains. “We encountered that when she finished school. No more school, no more therapies that are paid for and not a lot of support. A lot of young people with autism move home, and then they’re back here where they started from, and they think, ‘Is this my world?’ It was really scary to me.”
Molly’s sister and Able Talks founding board member Maggie Ivy agrees. “Something that I feel bad about is that the ‘drop-off’ point probably came at the worst time possible — because my sister … is just now hitting the peak of learning.”
“People often look at autism as a childhood diagnosis,” says Alahna Blakeman, Able Talks program director and lead instructor. “They don’t think about the fact that these children grow up. And as they grow up, their needs change.”
Wells says the idea for the concept of Able Talks came last year while listening to her daughter and her friends talk at a dinner party.
“They were talking about their dreams and what they can do — like own a bakery or be a meteorologist,” Wells remembers. “They were talking about what they’ve always known they were meant to do.”
“A young woman at the dinner then said something along the lines of ‘I can do anything I want to if people would just give me more time to study it,’” says Blakeman. “This was a real ‘aha moment’ for
me. A lot of the things they stay up at night worrying about are the exact same things that keep me awake at night. And the feeling of ‘I can do this. I just need some support’ was shared, too.”
“So I thought: Why not?” says Wells. “I said, ‘OK, if I give you this table, will you do this?’ And so they started that summer.”
Wells says that the structure for Able Talks took shape quickly: The students meet twice weekly for three hours each meeting.
“It’s one hour of study. I tell them, ‘If you study an hour every day in what you’re passionate about, you’ll be an expert in your field,’” she explains. An hour of peer interaction follows, which keeps the participants on track and exposes them to subjects they might not otherwise think about.
“They share their goals, so that there’s some accountability,” says Wells.
The third hour is what Wells categorizes as “social pragmatic skills or mental health therapy” that helps the students to bridge the gap between what they’ve learned in their previous education and what they need to know to live more independently.
Wells says that students start the program by identifying a goal and then set out to achieve it. Generally, they like to start off with goals that are easily achievable to build up some confidence toward setting bigger and more difficult goals. For example, the ultimate goal of one of their participants is to open a bakery, but her first goal — which she achieved — was to get her driver’s license.
That particular Able Talks student went on to work on her goal of opening a bakery by starting a “pop up” bakery shop online last Thanksgiving. Since, she has had multiple online sales and has sold out every time.
Wells is careful to say there is no set time limit to how long she expects each participant to take to achieve goals.
“I’d like to be real clear about that,” she says. “With autism, it happens in that person’s time, and as a parent, one of the nicest things an educator told me was, ‘If she doesn’t drive until she’s 30, that’s right on time. They’re working as hard as they can and as fast as they can.’”
The personal connection Wells and Ivy have to this cause is especially evident when they speak of the benefits of providing this kind of education for Molly.
“I’m a single parent,” says Wells, clearly moved. “I’m always saying, ‘Oh, I can’t die, because [Molly] won’t be safe.’”
“I’m the one who picks up the torch,” Ivy says simply. “We’ve done some stuff to prepare, though.”
“There’s not a day that goes by that [Maggie] doesn’t know that she’s going to have the responsibility for [Molly’s] life,” agrees Wells. “My goal is to get the biggest and baddest Molly I can so that these girls can do whatever they want.”
The organization has been funded for a year on an amount that was donated via crowdsourcing. On Oct. 6, they will host their first official fundraiser: Able Talks First Annual Print Gala. Ivy, a freelance illustrator, used her connections to other prominent local and national artists to secure limited edition prints from more than 25 artists. The artwork will be available for $25 each at the event.
“It’s during First Thursday, and we’ll have signs inviting everyone in,” says Wells. “It’s free entry, and everyone is welcome. We’ll have live music and drinks.”
The prints available will range widely in style and were created by professional artists all over the world, as well as those here in Northwest Arkansas. The local artists will be on hand to visit with the public.
Profits from the fundraiser will help Able Talks continue the work of guiding these young adults over the bridge between education and real life.
Says Wells, “I call them the experts in their own lives, and we treat them that way.”