About Milestones Organization
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WCSB, June 11, 2010
Milestones Executive Director Ilana Hoffer Skoff and staff member Ken Schneider appeared on the program "Give Back" on WCSB.
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Cleveland Jewish News, June 11, 2010
Innovators honored by Milestones Autism Organization
By ARLENE FINE, Senior Staff Reporter
Published: Friday, June 11, 2010 1:10 AM EDT
Two mothers of children with special needs who are very special themselves are being recognized by Milestones Autism Organization.
Ann Regan, who created No Rulz Art Collaborative LLC, and Jeanne Sydenstricker, who raised funds for a housing project that uses technology to promote independent living, will receive the 2010 Milestones Parent Recognition Awards at Milestones’ Annual Autism/Asperger’s Conference on Tues., June 22.
Fern Kendis’s son now shares a suburban home with two other young adult men with special needs, thanks to Sydenstricker’s vision and grant-writing skills. Sydenstricker, a former high-level TRW executive, used her business expertise to obtain grants that enable parents to create innovative living environments for their adult children.
The Kendises and two other parents planned a home environment that best suited their sons’ needs and provided them with more independence. Their retrofitted home includes strategically placed cameras and audio equipment inside and outside the home capable of relaying images and sound to their parents’ homes.
“This technology allows our children to live together semi-independently while we monitor their safety,” Kendis explains. Minimal assistance is provided by home healthcare workers and parents; the technology takes care of the rest.
After eight months in his new home, Kendis “has never seen my son happier,” she says. “His self-esteem and sense of independence has risen enormously, and he has a social life. His roommates and their families have become his family, as well as ours.”
Solon resident Debra Picker, whose son is one of Kendis’s roommates, is indebted to Sydenstricker for her guidance and foresight. “There is technology in this home we never knew existed,” she says. The living arrangement has helped Picker’s son “reach milestones I never knew he was capable of,” she says. “He has developed interpersonal skills and improved his personal judgment. This house has exceeded our expectations in many ways.”
For her part, Sydenstricker is grateful to Jewish Family Service Association for writing letters of support for the grant and “making it happen.”
“We still have more grant money left for other parents to develop innovative homes to meet their children’s needs,” she says. “I have two women with special needs looking for one more roommate so they, too, can have a specially designed home of their own.”
Assisting these parents with developing improved housing situations for seven adults is very gratifying, notes Sydenstricker, who has two children with special needs living in an advanced technology home. “All of us never envisioned our children would thrive as well as they have. They have been given responsibility for their own welfare and others and have risen to the occasion.”
Like Sydenstricker, Ann Regan has developed an innovative project to empower young adults with special needs. The No Rulz Art Collaborative LLC she founded gives 12 young adults ranging in age from 16 to 32, the opportunity to create tie-dyed socks, headbands and baby clothes that are sold at craft shows and stores.
“People with special needs are constantly under rules,” says Regan. “Our only rules are to respect one another and to use our creative, free-thinking skills.”
The collaborative was founded three years ago when Regan began an art program for children with special needs, including her son Tim, in collaboration with the Mayfield Heights recreation department. That program was so successful, Regan, who has always enjoyed arts and crafts projects, offered art classes in her Mayfield Village home so the young artists could do messier projects – like tie-dying.
When people started asking if they could buy the colorful socks, the group decided to turn their hobby into a business. “This idea bore itself, grew legs, and now we keep chasing it,” Regan says.
Money the artists earn goes back into art supplies and equipment to keep their venture running. “Every business decision we make is a group effort by all the partners,” says Regan. “These artists are empowered by their involvement, and I have learned never to underestimate them.”
Dawn Weiss has lots of tie-dyed items in her closet. Her daughter is a proud member of No Rulz and “loves being part of the group,” she says. “What Ann has done with these kids is awesome. Our kids profit not just from the sale of their goods, but from Ann’s extreme kindness and generosity.”
afine@cjn.org
WHAT: Milestones Autism/Asperger’s Conference
WHERE: Executive Caterers at Landerhaven
WHEN: Tues., June 22, from 7:30 – 4:45
CONTACT: milestones.org or 216-464-7600
Cleveland Jewish News, November 17, 2006
Mothers of invention achieve milestones
BY: SUSAN H. KAHN, Assistant Editor
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| Mia Buchwald Gelles, left, and Ilana Hoffer Skoff look over materials that will be presented at Milestones’ upcoming autism conference. |
Ilana Hoffer Skoff and Mia Buchwald Gelles met by chance in 2000 in a speech therapist’s waiting room.
Each has a child on the autism spectrum and, they discovered, they were using the same approach "Applied Behavior Analysis" to teach their youngsters.
“Children with autism don’t learn by observation," says Gelles. “You have to teach even common behaviors, like how to greet someone and how to carry on a conversation, in a deliberate, step-by-step manner."
Everyday experiences "getting a haircut or going to the dentist" have to be thought out in advance, explains Skoff.
“Children with autism also don’t generalize well," Gelles adds, “They find it difficult to apply a skill they have learned in one context to a new situation."
As they struggled to teach their children, the two mothers began helping each other analyze problems and devise strategies. They read books, attended conferences, shared information, sought out resources, hired and trained tutors. All the while, they were gaining valuable expertise.
“When the kids were in school full-time we finally had the time to share this knowledge," says Skoff. “We asked ourselves, how can we make a difference?"
The answer was Milestones, an organization the women founded in 2003 whose main focus is to provide training locally for professionals working with children on the autism spectrum. Established with funding from the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and the Lader, Senkfor, and McBride Family Foundations, the Cleveland Heights nonprofit rents office space in Beth El - The Heights Synagogue.
For their efforts, Gelles and Skoff are among five individuals being honored by Individuals Devoted to Educational Advocacy (IDEA) at their annual Celebration of Champions dinner on Nov. 16.
Milestones’ founders brought more than their personal experience with autism to this endeavor. Gelles, the organization’s operations director, has over 16 years’ experience in nonprofit management, project planning and administration, and custom database design. The Cleveland Heights resident also works as program director at Environmental Health Watch.
Skoff, of Beachwood, is Milestones’ executive director. For the past 18 years she has worked in the development field in the areas of strategic planning, board development and funding strategies, with her specialty being grant writing. Neither woman draws a salary.
Since its inception, Milestones has presented four large conferences, featuring nationally known experts in the autism field and a large array of workshops offering continuing professional education.
“In our very first year, we drew 390 participants," says Skoff. “People came out of the woodwork; they came from all over the state."
At the request of the Cuyahoga County Special Education Service Center, Milestones also organized a week-long, hands-on training seminar for 200 public school teachers. For this course, they recruited a small “lab class" of children with various degrees of autism. After teachers were taught new techniques, they could literally go next door and practice them in a real-life environment.
Milestones also works collaboratively with other regional autism service providers such as The Monarch School and The Cleveland Clinic Lerner School.
Its founders say that one of Milestones’ most important missions is to provide information. They have fielded calls from child life workers at hospitals, directors of teen youth groups, school personnel and, most often, parents and relatives.
“We help parents think through how to begin meeting the challenges they are facing," says Skoff. “We connect people; we tell them where they can get help."
In the future, Gelles and Skoff hope that Milestones will be able to help parents obtain objective needs assessments for their children with autism. They also would like the organization to address social, recreational, vocational and housing needs for young adults with the disorder.
While the women have done the lion’s share of work in establishing and running Milestones, they are quick to recognize the contributions of their spouses. Rabbi Joshua Hoffer Skoff came up with the name Milestones, while Joe Buchwald Gelles, who owns a graphic design firm, created all the organization’s printed materials.
The other IDEA honorees include Robert Ross of Solon, principal of Cuyahoga East Vocational Education Consortium (CEVEC) for the past seven years; University Heights resident James Dunne, former director of the Eleanor Gerson School in Cleveland; and Scott Kendis, a 2004 graduate of Beachwood High School with learning disabilities resulting from a brain tumor. He successfully litigated against his local board of education allowing him to graduate with his class and continue to receive necessary educational services.
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