Be Safe The Movie: Tool for Teaching Our Kids How To Interact With Police Officers

I've been searching for almost a year for some sort of safety training for children and young adults on the spectrum. For a while there seemed to be nothing of the kind until recently when I put the feelers out on twitter and a mom responded to my question. She tweeted the link https://besafethemovie.com/. Be Safe The Movie is an excellent teaching tool for families, schools, community programs and organizations to use for teaching children/teens/adults who are on the autism spectrum or have and intellectual disability how to interact with police officers. The movie is a several part series that goes over specific areas of interaction, awareness, ability to identify police officers and the tools they use on the job to keep us safe as well as themselves.

I encourage you as individuals, family members, caretakers and I/DD professionals to see if there is a local CIT affiliate and how often they conduct CIT trainings. Take a moment to speak with the CIT Coordinator and find out how you can share your experiences or concerns. My son and I were invited to share our experience during the Consumer Panel portion of the CIT training. The Consumer Panel is small forum of people who have a mental health and/or intellectual disability diagnosis. The panel may also include family members and caretakers. This is our chance as a community to interact with our officers and first responders in order to share and learn.

In my personal experience, I've found that sharing personal experiences about my son's interactions with first responders to be welcomed and extremely helpful for officers and first responders receiving the trainings. I thought it was going to be a one time thing, but the officer's and first responder's desire to learn and their appreciation for the opportunity to interact with my son was overwhelming. My son and I are now regular presenters at the quarterly CIT trainings.

Utilizing Be Safe The Movie is a great way to open and explore opportunities on how to work with you local police to set up safety trainings for persons on the autism spectrum and/or having other intellectual disabilities.

The video below shows how Be Safe the Movie is being used as tool for interactive trainings with Police Officers.

I hope this video sparks a fire in you as it has done for me to find even more ways to reach and teach our children about safety in the home and community.

For more information about Be Safe The Movie visit these links:

Be Safe The Movie (Official Trailer)

Web Page: Be Safe The Movie

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/BeSafeTheMovie/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/besafethemovie?lang=en

Studies Show Injury to Cerebellum Having Possible Connection to Autism

I usually don't pay much attention to most of the research on autism because it seems to be more propaganda than tangible. That's just my opinion. Earlier today I was doing a little research on TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) when I came across a couple articles about early injury to cerebellum being the root to autism. I don't know about it being the "root" to autism, but I do believe there is a direct connection.

My son started having seizures 3 years ago. Year before last, when the seizures started coming more frequently his neurologist scheduled an MRI. The results from the MRI showed a beautiful brain that appeared to be of normal functioning, that is with exception to the abnormality of my son's cerebellum. One side appears to be fine, but the other side is almost nonexistent. The neurologist said she did not see any correlation between my son's malformed cerebellum and autism. I did a little research the functioning of the cerebellum. According to what I read the cerebellum contributes quite a bit to the brains functionality Overview: Functions of The Cerebellum. So if my son's cerebellum is malformed, how could it not in some way contribute to his autism or perhaps some of the traits of autism like speech (being non-verbal)?

As I stated, it was a few years ago when we first discovered my son's brain abnormality. I found this information earlier today. The article was originally written September 7th 2014. I still can't quite figure out why the neurologist had no clue.

"New research from Princeton shows that cerebellum damage, especially in the second and third trimesters, could be the root of autism."

Here's the link Early Brain Injury Might Be the Root of Autism