Intervention Fundamentals Financial Assistance Fund
According to the 2011 PA Autism Needs Assessment:
- 95% of pre-school age children with autism require assistance eating. More than 10% of them still require support as adults.
- ¼ of adults with autism and nearly 95% of pre-elementary children with autism are not able to independently communicate their wants.
- Greater than 70% of pre-school age children and 20% of adults with autism are not toilet trained.
Zachary Benkovitz & Randall Keech founded Intervention Fundamentals in November 2014 to serve families who have struggled to teach their children these skills within the context of conventional supports. Intervention Fundamentals empowers families by enlisting their active participation in the teaching process as we provide them with high-intensity outcome-based training.
Our interventions target essential skill development in four functional areas: toileting, communication, feeding &sleeping. Guiding parents as they teach their child new skills within the unique context of their family’s daily life yields rapid & robust results, and instills all family members with greater confidence as they pursue continued fulfillment of their child’s potential.
However, not every family is in the position to pay out-of-pocket for our services. We have met with numerous families who need help teaching one or more of these skills to their child, but cannot afford our services. In December 2016 we established a Fiscal Sponsorship with New Sun Rising to launch Intervention Fundamentals’ Financial Assistance Fund. This fund will allow any family who has struggled to teach their child these basic skills within conventional supports — not only those with the financial means — to access our services. We are grateful for the initial donation, enough to allow us to serve three families on our financial wait-list, made by one of the families we worked with in 2016.