- [Jeffrey] Welcome to "Healthy Minds," I'm Dr. Jeff Borenstein.

Everyone is touched by psychiatric conditions, either themselves or a loved one.

Do not suffer in silence.

With help, there is hope.

(gentle music) Today on "Healthy Minds."

- Neurodiversity and autism is here.

What do we do when they're post 18?

Because 75% of funding goes to children on the spectrum, 0 to 18.

So it doesn't go to the children, but goes to research and goes to supports.

But those children that are on the spectrum at 18 are gonna be on the spectrum at 28, 38, 48, 58.

So we need to really, as a society, be focusing on what are we doing to be ready for this wave of children identified with autism.

What are we doing to provide the resources and support to accommodate their needs?

- That's today on "Healthy Minds."

This program is brought to you in part by the American Psychiatric Association Foundation (gentle music continues) and the John & Polly Sparks Foundation.

(gentle music continues) Today I speak with Keli Mondello, the mother of a child with neurodiversity.

Keli co-founded a school that begins in kindergarten, goes through high school, and then continues to post high school education and even programs for young adults to help them succeed and thrive.

(gentle music continues) Keli, thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you.

It's actually an incredible honor to be on here.

I've seen your guests and your show, and I'm not sure how I got the privilege to do this interview with you, but thank you very much.

- Well, thank you.

And I think our audience is gonna find out as our conversation unfolds why we're having you on the show.

And I wanna jump right in and ask you about LiFT.

First of all, it's an acronym.

What does it stand for?

And tell us about it.

- It stands for Learning Independence For Tomorrow.

It's a nonprofit educational organization that is a K through 12 academy, a four-year secondary transition program, and an adult program that focuses on career readiness.

It was the inception of my co-founder, Kim Kuruzovich, and myself, and we started this as passionate mamas for our daughters, Morgan and Gina.

And we had both tried different educational options, and nothing was the right environment for our kiddos who are on the autism spectrum.

And now they're adults, but they're still always our kiddos.

So I'm not an expert in autism by any means, but I am an expert in raising my daughter on the autism spectrum.

And LiFT was personally a solution.

We couldn't find what we needed in private or charter or public.

And as a speech language pathologist, and Kim being, she has a background in Special Ed and a master's in school administration, we got this crazy idea one night and we drew out what this would look like for our girls.

And here we are 11 years later, and we have almost 200 students.

And we just finished a massive renovation of a 60,000 square foot YMCA in Clearwater.

And all of our programs are housed on one campus.

- So I'd like you to tell us a little bit about what makes the program special, what makes it work for children and young adults who are living with neurodiversity?

- Sure.

I would say a couple things.

The biggest, biggest thing that we do really, really well is we've created a community.

So just like you and I get to hang out with our friends, we choose where we live, we choose the social activities we become involved with, kids on the autism spectrum, even at a young age, they're often the ones that are not picked for the teams and they're not the ones that get to be in leadership positions, and they're the ones that society has coined the weird ones.

Autism, in general, just is, as you know, a neurodevelopmental disorder.

It's not a disease.

It just means you interact with the world differently than the neurotypical brain does.

So we have a community of neurodiverse students and individuals who have found their tribe and their leaders and they work together, they play together, they socialize together.

Even the alumni group, my daughter is 29, and she still participates in the alumni activities.

So it's a community of belonging, and I think that's incredibly, incredibly critical, especially right now when we're faced with so many challenges in society.

And for our area, we have a place for neurodivergent individuals to call home.

- What was the experience that your daughter had at schools that already existed?

What was happening there that wasn't good enough?

- Yeah, that's a great question because what it was for me, for my husband, and for our daughter is different than it was for Kim and for her daughter.

What we found for Morgan is that she was actually cruising along just fine.

And it's really hard to identify autism in children until the behavioral traits start to become a little more evident.

And that seems to be, in my experience, running the school, or not running the school, but overseeing the organization, it seems to be about fourth or fifth grade that it becomes a little more obvious, the delta between neurotypical and neurodivergent.

So our daughter was really cruising along great.

And then there was one time I remember being at this charter school and she would come home not having a whole lot of homework, which concerned me because I had two other neurotypical children that were coming home with a lot of homework.

So not that I'm, I wanna put on too much work, but there were no expectations.

And that was the biggest driver for me as a passionate mama who thought, "This child's going to get to experience everything her siblings get to experience."

And when I went in and realized she was being passed and she was making great grades, but she was so far behind where she should have been at that particular time, I started to look for another program, and that's when I found a private school that had a larger population of special ed kids, and Kim was the director of that program, and she placed expectations on her, and Morgan just soared.

When you place the expectations on the children and the young adults, they rise to the challenge.

And I have found that it to be true for Morgan from the time she was little to today.

- As a mom, when did you first notice that there may be differences between Morgan and her siblings?

- Well, Morgan's story's a little bit different.

Morgan had infantile spasms and she had epilepsy.

So she had two brain surgeries when she was little before the age of five.

So while her autism wasn't identified until she was older, until she was an adult, I knew from my educational background as an SLP, she had all the characteristic traits that someone on the spectrum has.

And autism really is, as we talk about, it's a neurodevelopmental disorder, it's not a disease.

So there is not blood work that we could have done.

I knew exactly what we were dealing with and I knew some of the tricks of the trade.

And I was doing ABA stuff with Morgan from the time she was very little, training her behaviors so that she would have the best chance to grow in a neurotypical world.

- You refer to ABA, tell us what that means for those in the audience who aren't familiar.

- ABA is called Applied Behavioral Analysis.

So the degree is ABA, that's the master's you receive, but the title of the person who implements the ABA is called a behavioral analyst.

The actual therapy is growing in population because parents are finding that behaviors that are difficult to manage at home can be managed by a behavioral analyst or by what's called an RBT, a Registered Behavioral Technician, and they come in and they work with the children one-on-one.

And we have so many students at LiFT that have ABAs or RBTs working one-on-one with them every day in the classroom while the behavior is happening.

Instead of being pulled out into a resource room or just working with them in a clinical setting or just working with them at home, at LiFT, our students can have their RBTs or their ABAs right next to them all day long.

- What is the approach at LiFT, in addition to the community, which you so eloquently spoke about how important that is, what else is done at LiFT to help the children and then teenagers and then young adults?

Take us through that process.

- Well, with regards to the ABA, one thing that we do that's very different than we find in other school or educational environments is we allow the students and the families to bring in therapists, especially ABA.

We find in the autism world the ABA is critical to allowing the children to have the behaviors they need to learn in the classroom.

And at LiFT, the ABA therapists are allowed in the classroom all day long if they need to be.

They are working with the students where the behaviors are happening so that they can redirect the behavior so the children really have the opportunity to learn.

And besides the community, I think that's one of the greatest things we provide our families and our learners.

- I would think in my sense from speaking to you is that a part of the process is really helping the parents to learn how to best help their child.

And tell me a little bit about what LiFT does to help the families help their children.

- I'll start with our family resource center, which is available to anybody, anybody watching your show.

It's our hub.

Right now, it is a lot online, but it just opened this year.

And we have a bricks and mortar room that we're providing some seminars and we're providing trainings, but it's a hub of resources.

So if you're looking for pediatricians or sensory-friendly vacation spots or things like that, you can go to our family resource center.

Besides that though, we provide opportunities every month for our families to come together because when you're raising a child with a special healthcare need, you need to feel like you're not left out in the dark, that you have a community as well that understands what you're going through.

Raising a child on the spectrum is a family deal.

And it's not just for the child, it's not just for the mom, it's not just for the dad, it affects families, marriages, siblings, everybody has a part in this dynamic.

So we provide a community and opportunities for our families to get together every month and share their lessons, their situation, what they've gone through, what they're going through, and and ask for help in whether it's from the teachers, the team members, our leadership, or from each other.

It's a community.

- One of the challenges is sort of as the child gets older, moving into young adulthood, and that balance of independence, but still needing support from the family.

Tell us about that.

- We've kind of evolved.

LiFT has evolved as our girls evolved.

So when our girls needed to graduate and to have accommodations, and perhaps some modifications but still receive their standard diploma, then that's what we built.

And then when our girls graduated from high school with standard diplomas and we decided, now they need and deserve a four-year post-secondary program, like their siblings who are neurotypical and get to experience all of the great things after high school, we built a transition program.

And that focused on the independence that they would need and the skills they would need to acquire, to get to their fullest potential of independence.

And we focused on our academics.

We maintained a level of academics that was appropriate for their learning abilities, but we also incorporated life skills, almost home ec, if you will.

And on top of that, we had job training that we started at, I guess, it would've been their first year of university.

So we went out in the community and we were literally knocking on doors, and said, "We have young adults here with learning differences, but a lot to offer.

Can you help us by helping them?"

So we asked our local restaurant that serves pizza and our local veterinarian and a nursing home, "Are there positions there that you could use an intern, we're not asking you to pay them, but could you take in these young adults with learning differences that have this valuable skillset of loyalty, dependability, all of these things that would make them great employees, and we're gonna provide a job coach, and will you teach them the skills that they need?"

And we had the most amazing community response.

And within the first year of starting this community partners program, we probably had a dozen, we had more community partners willing to help us than we had students at the time for in our transition program.

So as we grew, as our daughters grew, our program grew.

So that was the transition program and it's, to me, it's one of, well, I love everything about LiFT because every time I go in there, I'm like, "Oh, gosh."

Every time I go to campus, I look at things going on.

And our executive director and our leadership are taking leaps and bounds into places that Kim and I only dreamt of.

But the transition program is probably our heart because that was the main focus when we decided to start LiFT is what are we gonna do for our girls when they graduate from high school.

- And then there's a program after the transition program.

Tell us about that as well.

- Yes, so what we recognized is in our goal, I should have stated, our goal is for all of our students to have gainful employment.

We want them to graduate from LiFT University and we want them to have the skills and the confidence to go out in the world and have a full-time job.

Part of our job is also to educate our community.

I feel that personally.

I feel like LiFT is a leader in the landscape of neurodiversity in our community.

And so we have to share our lessons and what we've learned with the community that's not familiar with neurodiversity, but what we have learned is for those students that might not be able to have full-time employment, or perhaps they have the skillset or the ability or the intellect to work part-time, what are they doing the rest of the time?

And the answer would be they're sitting at home.

So we decided to, that was a problem, we needed a solution.

So we came up with, actually it was Gina, Kim's daughter, who came up with our first micro business, I call it our social enterprise for sustainable employment.

And it was, it's called LiFT Your Heart, and it's crafts, art, bags, pillows, everything that you can think of if you'd go into like a Chip and Joanna Gaines-type of store, boutiquey kind of gifts.

We do a holiday market.

Gosh, we do so much.

We do a pumpkin patch farm.

There's so many things we do with that enterprise, but we found that our young adults that are not able to find full-time employment still had so much to give, so much value to add to our community.

And we created these opportunities for them to work.

So we have LiFT Your Heart, and we have a LiFT Your Fork catering crew, and I would have to say our red velvet cupcakes and cookies, I would argue that they're some of the best that I've ever had, and that's my favorite.

And we have a LiFT U cleaning crew.

And right now in a transitionary period, but our other micro business is Leo's Cafe, and that is where our young adults also run the cafeteria for our LiFT Academy students.

We're in a transitionary phase right now because our cafeteria is not quite built out.

- I wanna ask you to share some guidance to somebody watching right now who's concerned about their child that may be on the autism spectrum.

What do you say to that parent?

- I'm a huge advocate of being a champion for your child.

So start at your school, and that was one area that I did, and start with your pediatrician.

And don't stop until you are comfortable with the diagnosis or you're comfortable with understanding why your child has the certain behaviors that they do.

And autism's biggest marker is probably the social connections and the way that children with autism view their world around them.

Executive functions are typically not what the neurotypical are.

Eye contact's a big marker.

The way they relate to their peers, another marker.

But keep fighting until you get comfortable with a diagnosis and what you're hearing.

If you're not comfortable, then as a parent, listen to your gut.

- Parents know their children.

- Parents know their children.

And if you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism.

- Right, everybody's their own individual.

- Absolutely.

- And how do you approach a school where they may not have the top-of-the-line special services, but they may not be other alternatives for that family.

What do you do to at least make it the best thing possible for your child?

- Oh, that is a struggle that I think every parent has that has a child with an IEP, and that's an individualized educational plan in the public school system.

I think every parent that has a child with an IEP can feel the pain of what you're talking about.

It is a struggle.

And that is why LiFT actually exists.

Finding the people to listen to you and say, "This is not right.

My child needs more services," can be exhausting, but don't give up.

If you don't have options, then you have to create the opportunities in your school system, in your school, in your setting.

But there are options in most communities for neurodivergent children, there usually are options that are outside of the public schools.

And if there aren't, find a group of parents that you can connect with and call me.

Let me see what I can do.

- Well, that, I think that's good advice.

And I like the find a group of parents because we know, just based on the numbers, that in any community, there will be a community of families, of parents, of children that may be going through similar types of circumstances.

So people shouldn't be alone and should be make use of that support of a community.

- Jeff, the most recent CDC numbers for autism is 1 in 36, so most classrooms are about 30.

Now at LiFT, we keep ours.

I think that's another really important thing that I didn't mention, we keep ours to 16 because of the needs of the various levels and needs of each learner, but 1 in 36.

So we need to really, as a society, be focusing on what are we doing to be ready for this wave of children identified with autism.

What are we doing to provide the resources and support to accommodate their needs?

- Yeah, extremely important because it's not just children, as we've already discussed, it's young adulthood and then older adulthood down the road.

What can we as a society do to help those people and their families?

- That is such a critical topic.

And I work on that as well outside of LiFT on some other boards to focus on what do we do when they're post 18 because 75% of funding goes to children on the spectrum, 0 to 18.

So it doesn't go to the children, but goes to research and goes to supports.

But those children that are on the spectrum at 18 are gonna be on the spectrum at 28, 38, 48, 58.

And we are preparing our young adults at LiFT, and I'm preparing Morgan at home, but we need to, again, as a society, we need to be focusing on this population because as the numbers continue to rise, and I don't believe that there's something in the water or anything like that that's creating that.

I think we're just becoming more aware as a society and we're putting a lot more money in research than we ever have.

So the diagnostic tools for identifying are so much better.

But neurodiversity and autism is here and we have got to figure out how we can be accepting, inclusive, provide accommodations, and what are we doing to prepare ourselves and our communities to be as accepting and inclusive as we possibly can be.

- You spoke about the programs at LiFT to help young adults get into the workforce, and I'd like you to speak a little bit more about the issue of employment for people who are living with neurodiversity.

- We live in a timeframe and a society right now where we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but we don't really talk about neurodiversity, and I think we're missing the boat.

Young adults that are on the autism spectrum have a very special gift and abilities that they can contribute to so many companies, corporations, and I wish that everyone could get on the train where they looked at neurodiversity as something to be celebrated, not something to shy away from.

And I just would like corporations, our companies come together and look at where we can offer solutions and where we could put some of these mindsets of inability and change it and look at the abilities and hire some of these beautiful, beautiful members of our community that have so much to offer.

- Keli, I want to thank you for joining us today.

I want to thank you for all that you've done.

Obviously, you did it for your own daughter, but you're doing it for so many other people as well.

You have passion, you wear your passion on your sleeve, and I appreciate your sharing that passion and your knowledge and experience with us today.

- It was my honor.

I am grateful for this opportunity.

(gentle music) - If you're a parent of a neurodiverse child, don't leave any stones unturned.

Do everything that you can to find the support and assistance for your child.

Remember, with help, there is hope.

(gentle music continues) Do not suffer in silence.

With help, there is hope.

(gentle music continues) This program is brought to you in part by the American Psychiatric Association Foundation and the John & Polly Sparks Foundation.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues)