Why the Biggest Barrier in Autism Care Is Still Transportation—and How to Fix It

[0:16]  Welcome back to the Heart and Hustle Podcast. This time we have Miss Amy Bailey. How you doing today, ma'am?

[0:21]  I'm doing well. How are you?

[0:23]  You know, it's hot. It's hot. If for those that may be watching or listening, I'm in Orlando and it's just so hot and humid and then next week we're supposed to be going to Arizona. So my wife is like, Is it really that hot out there? I'm like, Yeah, we're going from hot to hot and she's like, my God. So have you been to Orlando? Do you understand what the humidity feels like?

[0:42]  I have I have I'm in Cincinnati and next week we're getting a second heat dome coming through. So it's supposed to be about a hundred and seven on Wednesday, so not looking

[0:48]  Album. so you you ready? Is it humid as well out there?

[0:55]  It is not the same as you, but yeah, it is.

[0:58]  Got it, got it. And because I don't know anything about Cincinnati, it do you guys get seasons? Like us, I feel like we just get summer, you know.

[1:04]  We do. We get some wonderful seasons. I was raised in western New York, so definitely we don't get winters like they do up there, but everyone thinks they do here and they shut down when there's, you know, half an inch of snow and but no, we get some pretty nice, pretty nice season changes around here.

[1:14]  Mm. Love and were you born and raised in Cincinnati?

[1:24]  No, no. I'm from Western New York originally, tiny, tiny, tiny town in southwest New York, right on the border of Pennsylvania.

[1:36]  Got it. And what brought you to Cincinnati? Just life?

[1:38]  honestly, autism of all things. I had a friend whose mother worked at a school and said, I hear this thing called autism scholarship is coming to Ohio. what about that girl at your college that was all into autism? You should tell her about it.

[1:56]  How life had happened huh?

[1:58]  Life does just happen.

[2:00]  I would say that's why it's so important to also share your stories. and really kind of always be yourself more than anything, right? Because the opportunity came from you being authentically you, sharing what your passions were, being very involved. Is that really how it all came about?

[2:33]  Pretty much. I think I went to college in Kentucky, Berea, and you know, you start to get into research, right? Your junior and senior year. And I just remember that as I started to research well, actually I went into work with a young child over the summer and I kept coming back to a professor and saying, Well, why is he doing this? Why is he doing this? And Lord love that professor. He said, research it. He refused to answer my questions, which actually kind of frustrated me. I was asking a question, I wanted an answer. and his answer was research it. And then that becomes obsessive. You go down these rabbit holes of researching, and I kept looking for answers, and there were none. There were just more pointed questions. so it it just became something that has now become a career.

[3:07]  Fast forward so today, what is your role in the organization that you're actually working with?

[3:11]  So I'm one of three female owners of our agency, Transitions Behavioral Health, where a behavioral health agency. I would say that the majority of our clientele has autism or other developmental disorders. And we have everything from early intervention for kids as young as two years old, all the way through community-based services where we're helping in schools and homes. And then we also have adult day services where we have clients who are now adults who are coming to our program during the day for some socialization and skill development.

[3:45]  Love it. And you said there's two other ladies that are part of this journey with you. How did that all come about? Just friends coming together or

[3:52]  No, well, they were friends. so they knew each other. They met in Columbus. They both worked for a a psychologist in Columbus, and he did a lot of diagnostic work, and then he would send them out into the homes to help families and to help with some behaviors and some of the things they were struggling with. and then Michelle stayed in Columbus and then Lori kind of bridged out and went to Cincinnati after the psychologist had retired. and they both moved on and kind of did their own businesses. I came up from Alabama when I went to grad school in Alabama. And when my friend's mother said, Hey, Autism Scholarship is coming to Ohio, you should come check it out. one of the companies I came up to look at was Lori's Company. And that was 24 years ago. so then you just find like-minded people that are speaking the same language. So I came up here.

[3:52]  What?

[4:00]  We did a lot of early intervention ABA at that time. And then as we grew, I was doing community contracts, which were group behavioral health. We had lots of different types of providers on these teams, which I found insanely interesting because it wasn't just people in my field. Sometimes I didn't always agree with the opinions of other people on these teams, but you had to learn how to how to collaborate.

[4:31]  Mm-hmm.

[5:02]  You know, really how to listen to someone else's perspective and then get them to listen to yours because these families had how many professionals talking to them. And if we couldn't come to an agreement, what does that mean for the family? They didn't know who to follow. So I think it was a a great professional development to be on some of those teams.

[5:34]  You know, I had a discussion with my sister. She has two kids that are autistic, about nine nine to ten months apart. And you know, she always says that we won't understand and and we won't, right? Because she's living it and th these are her children. Do you but they always always ask for that thing of that I hear from her is I feel like I don't have the help or they don't care. Is that of a communication thing? You just p feel that people may not know what they don't know and and they just haven't found the right resources. And I and I know we're in two different places, but

[5:34]  Sure.

[6:02]  I feel sometimes the answer some is in our own backyards. We just never heard of it or never experienced it.

[6:09]  I don't think people know what help they need. so people know they need help, but how do you define that? What does that look like? Do you need a break? Do you need respite? Do you need someone to come into your home and help? What is it that you need? And I think parents with children on the spectrum are very isolated. they've gone out in public and maybe their child has had a meltdown and they're embarrassed, and so then they don't take them in public anymore.

[6:09]  Mm.

[6:36]  things that they used to be able to do easily, like go to the grocery store, run errands, those are no longer easy. And I think they start to feel judgment from other people in the community, and so they stop doing things. And then so when we come in to help, we don't know where to start. Do we start with the things in the home? Do we start with helping them expand their environment and getting out more? What's the important place? What is the big stressor?

[6:50]  Mm-hmm.

[7:05]  that is keeping them from having a bigger, better life, right? Because what I hear from these families is their life feels very, very small and they feel very, very alone. So sometimes it might be just having family meetings and getting other family members to come in and understand autism or understand the stressors that they're going through. Because if you don't feel supported by your own family, how are you going to go out and get support elsewhere?

[7:09]  Yeah.

[7:33]  So I I think we meet people where they're at and that can be a lot of different places.

[7:42]  And how how does someone first approach you know, you as an organization? Is it just going to the website? Is it just coming through the doors? How does someone even find out that you're present in the community?

[7:51]  Yeah, so it can be as simple as going to the website. I feel like autism tends to become its own subcommunity. in most places, we tend to get referrals from the same people because there's only a certain number of people that do diagnostics in the area. And so they know who to refer out to. when people are going to their school and looking for early intervention, they might say, you're not ready for this, but maybe you should try one of these programs first. Again, a lot of times at schools, if a kid is having problems there and they call the parent and the parent says, we're having these problems at home too, they will give them referrals out to outside behavioral health agencies. So I think they usually start somewhere else and it's someone that knows them and knows us that pairs us together.

[8:15]  Got it. The w the word of mouth. It never fails. how would someone that is almost kind of back to my sister's situation, that may have that that family member that is dealing with this close in their own home, how do you address it when you realize that there is kind of an issue there? and maybe they don't see it as that, maybe they're just living like that. How would someone approach it?

[8:39]  Yes. Yeah. So I I feel like it's it's very easy for someone to come in, look at the situation, say, okay, here's your problem and here's how we're gonna fix it. That doesn't really fix anything because that's me telling you what you need to change in your life. So my approach has always been more to go in and spend a lot of time interviewing, spend a lot of time asking questions because what I might see as a priority and what I might see as the largest problem behavior may not be what's actually affecting that person in their home.

[9:03]  Mm-hmm.

[9:28]  From functioning each day. So I think y we really have to figure out what the pain point is for that family. What is the thing that they are really, really, really struggling with? often it tends to not even be the daily behaviors. It's things like they can't get their child to sleep. And when their child doesn't sleep, they don't sleep, and then they are not equipped to deal with the behaviors the next day. they can't get their child to eat or eat appropriate foods. then they're not growing appropriately. So a lot of times the referral comes to us from behavior, but there are so many other health and environmental things that we end up having to work with before we can even get to the behavior.

[10:11]  Got it. Yeah. And how does someone approach someone with autism? I think sometimes there's also the kind of like scared, right? Of of of speaking to someone when you realize that they may be on the spectrum. How can someone approach that? I I I think when we looked at what it looked like years ago, we're in a way different place. It is almost becoming the norm, which I think it's it's great, but I still think that there's some the f some fear around it. Maybe some just not not educated around it, maybe.

[11:08]  Sure. Yeah. Way different ways. There is and I think that the word is almost overapplied. it is such a spectrum. We say spectrum for a reason. You know, I work with individuals who are completely nonverbal, aggressive, self-indurous, all types of of really, really detrimental behaviors. I also have worked with individuals who are very high functioning, can talk very well and in fact are going to college. But they're masking everything that's going on inside by knowing just enough to put out there, right? So that's a a pretty big spectrum of where you're going to meet someone, right? So it is hard to know what to do and how to handle things because you might not even know that person has autism until you get into an awkward spot in a conversation. You wonder, huh, I I'm I wonder why they said it that way or I wonder why they're responding to it this way or why they're not showing any emotion when they respond to that. where the some of the younger children who maybe are nonverbal, you're going to see it from the second they walk up to you. You're going to know when they're doing a repetitive behavior. You're going to know when they're toe walking. You're going to know when maybe they're they're not talking. They're just repeating the same statement over and over. So it's just such different presentations that I think people aren't even sure where to start.

[12:05]  What keeps you doing this day after day? Look like you've been doing this for so long?

[12:10]  goodness. that's a great question. I think, you know, you have to evolve in your practice. Early on, my practice was direct practice, working with the kids. as I started to mature in the field, I think I was doing a lot more consulting, more working with the parents, trying to meet them where they're at, see what their needs were. And then I was supervising the people who were doing direct work with the kids. And then the further we developed and we got into, you know, different funding systems. Now I do a lot more administrative stuff. And then even recently, now as the tides are changing and there's so much change in mental health and in funding, now I've had to become a part of political situations where we have to actually represent the field. So I think it's been, I can't say that I've gone 10 years doing the same thing. I think probably every five years there's been a been a little bit of a a shift in what I'm doing and what I'm approaching.

[13:08]  What do you think this this space has really done for you at a leadership level? Could imagine that there's so much really to learn from a leadership perspective.

[13:08]  Very much so. in my younger years, again, when I was on those mental health collaborative teams, I think that was the best professional development that someone could have. It wasn't just people from my agency, it was people from multiple agencies. And we had to come together and we had to meet and we had different perspectives, and you had to put your ego down, you had to not just fight for what you think, you had to listen to someone else's perspective, and you had to find a way to come to the middle enough to present. one plan and one approach to that family. that is very difficult for a young professional to do. but I think it was very good development. I think learning how to go from doing the direct work with the kids to working with the parents is a big jump. Especially when I was young and it was before I had children of my own. Parents wanted to question me and say, what do you know? Do you have kids? No, I don't. All I have are the experience I've had working with other people's kids. So I each of these are steps and things that you have to professionally develop through. And they're different parts of your own social skills you have to learn to adapt. Being careful, again, not to say that you've done something, but hey, this is what I've learned through this parent that I worked with. This is what I learned from this client I work with who had something similar to your child. Like

[13:08]  Yeah.

[14:45]  Making sure that you just use that experience and those previous attempts to help a family get to a point where they can see themselves trying that because the work is on them. When I leave, I can write a plan, but they have to do the work. So you have to connect.

[15:03]  And d do you I would love to for you to kind of go backwards and remember where we were around autism and and what that looked like ten years ago to what it looks like today. Is there a huge change and are we moving forward even with something like AI nowadays and what that actually may look like for that sector?

[15:22]  It is so different. It is such a different field. when I came out of college, I remember I was very focused in autism. It's all I wanted to do, it's all I wanted to focus on. And I was told by a professor multiple times, you will never have a full-time job in autism. And that's 25 years ago when there there weren't any professions in autism. And even when you did come out, you might be able to be an aide at a school.

[17:22]  Mm. Wow.

[17:22]  Because these services really weren't paid for by medical insurance. So at that point, your only place to work with individuals was at the school. And then slowly it started to evolve. I'm a board certified behavior analyst by nature. And that started to become involved in insurance. So then we started to get into the insurance field. But then even in insurance, they were like, is this medical or is this mental health?

[17:23]  Mm.

[17:31]  And so even that trend has changed of kind of where it fits. and they're always right now that's still a fight. So for it had really about maybe eight years ago, autism became an access one diagnosis, which meant that it firmly belonged in mental health. But then states started changing their language. They weren't calling it mental health anymore, they were calling it behavioral health. And so we were all in this big

[17:39]  That's a good question. Where is it? Where do where do they wow. Mm.

[17:47]  you know, pot together. and now as we're moving even farther forward, now they're trying to separate it again and still saying that there's so many pieces of autism that are still developmental that belong in DD and IDD, which is a whole nother field and a whole nother pocket. So people are are just trying to decide what parts of treatment belong where. And that again starts to silo us and segregate us all over again. and makes it very difficult for families to navigate.

[17:55]  So while there's been a lot of growth, there's also been a lot of like going backwards sometimes. Wow. And and are you guys using AI? Are you seeing AI actually being useful for this space?

[18:03]  Sometimes yeah. I would love to say I'm not using AI. I think I fought against it forever and ever because you want to think that I have all of this experience. I should be able to pull this out. But I'm not gonna lie. I enjoy a AI for some of the things that I find time consuming, like writing a policy or procedure for staff, right? I know the basics, I know what I want put in there, and I'm gonna throw it in. They can give me the bones of something and then I can go clean it up. So that's the extent to I use it, or you might use it for like a marketing campaign on Facebook or something, right? You're gonna if you want to talk to people about you know, the fact that summer's coming up and to watch out for these things or, you know, trends and things like that. I know there are some people using AI to help out with their notes, their documentation for doing services. We haven't gone that route.

[18:11]  Mm-hmm.

[18:20]  I I think we're we're trying to my fear is if you do that, then you miss training opportunities for staff. I wanna know that they understand it before they use a tool to write something for them. But I do see the efficiency of it and I do see how it can be useful, but I'm still still a little old school.

[19:00]  Hundred percent. No, I agree. Yeah. I'm glad you're using it. You're your early adapter. You're you're you're early on right now. Yeah. I I think the more that you use it, it's always funny. I would always remember having a conversation with s someone in I can't remember what space she was in. I think she was like a keynote speaker, but she was just so against it. And I was like, Have you tried it? And she's like, No, no, no, no, no. I'm I'm already using social media and I didn't want to use that, right? So I sat there and I pulled up GPT. Now this was some time ago, but I kind of just like, you know.

[19:40]  Yeah. Yeah.

[19:48]  was speaking for her, like, hey, I know this about you. Watch this. And I and I put it in she's like mind blown. During the weekend, she messages me and she's like, hey, I just want you to know I haven't stopped using ChatGPT. It's only been she's like, I learned so much. But it is, it's something that you do have to test. And I still think there's a lot of education to be that goes behind it. I just don't know that we're really set up for that right now. I look at it the high school levels, they're actually blocking it in the high schools

[19:57]  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[20:06]  So then you go to college and there's AI, but you don't really know how to use it. So there's definitely that gap, but I'm glad that you're using it and and finding different ways.

[20:15]  There is a Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think in our area, I know one it's not AI specifically, but there's a l big push to do things like smart homes so that individuals with developmental disabilities can live more independently and there's like remote monitoring and stuff so that there's help there when they need it, but that they can have as much independence and privacy as possible. So they're they're trying to integrate, you know, things like that where a little bit big brotherish, you know.

[20:24]  I've seen that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've heard that like it'll let you know of the stove's been on for, you know, too long or things like that. Which is cool, you know, 'cause I think about those, you know, we're talk we haven't really got into it, but those parents that their kids are going to be at some point an adult, or that parent does pass away, what is happening, you know, to these individuals? I guess that's a good good question for you. Like, what does that look like?

[20:33]  Yes. So that and that's a part that I'm passionate about. we said we have three owners. our one owner is definitely a lot more into the early intervention. one is a lot more clinical, and then I've always been transitioned to adulthood. That's definitely my big passion. transition to adulthood is a very, very difficult time because again, you have these siloed agencies. You have education, you have mental health, and then you have develop DD, which is

[20:47]  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[21:01]  DD is where you get waivers and you tend to support adults. there's the funding there, but you still have to jump suddenly from school to DD, and there's not a great bridge in between the two. They try to have transition coordinators and helpfulness, but you know, it's a pretty big jump. You know, in a school, you have not just your teacher, but there's usually an aide and the speech path and the OT and the special ed director. You have a whole team that is surrounding your child. And when you get out into adulthood,

[21:04]  Yeah.

[21:33]  Suddenly you might have funding, but the parent has to run that. And they weren't set up or equipped to run that. They don't know what they need. They don't know what to ask for. They don't know where to start. so we've worked with a lot of families with that. And I again I work with a lot of individuals through adult day and help with that transition. But yeah, setting them up in apartment and setting them up with staff and all of those types of things.

[21:46]  Makes sense.

[22:03]  eventually getting them to having a roommate. These are all some pretty big steps. Yeah, those are

[23:15]  Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah, yeah. it goes back to that gap of high school and life, right? Like when you leave high school, I remember like the best buddies and they're in chorus class with me and I and then I I didn't think about it. It may have been you that we had a a previous conversation and really thought, What do ha what does happen to these individuals that I was in class with and now what? Then I would just actually at the school, I think I told you that I lead the foundation, there was one that he actually aged out of school, but he still comes every Friday and helps out.

[24:27]  With some.

[25:20]  Because he still you know, it's his mom is okay with it, the school is okay with it. And he sat there with me during an event the whole time and it's like, Hey, I gotta go, I gotta go help out, you know, such and such. But I'll back. but some people still have that community and some don't. So I'm glad that you're kind of in that space of finding where can these individuals still find the community and still feel like they're part of your everyday life, per se. You got kids of your own, you said, or now?

[26:13]  Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I do. I've got a thirteen year old daughter and a fourteen year old son.

[27:06]  Okay, okay. So these kids are a little older, but h how do you turn off? I mean, you deal with these stories. Ca imagine that some of them are are really impactful for you emotionally. felt maybe sometimes you feel like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders. How do you turn that off to then go and be wife and and mom and all that?

[27:59]  I don't know that I do a good job of that. I I I would love to tell you that I do. and I think that's something we're we all work on. my husband is an engineer, so his job is not at all the way mine is. And it's become a joke between us. So like we'll go out to a fundraiser or something and we'll go and someone will introduce him and say, they'll say, What do you do? He's like, Well, I'm an engineer. No one asks follow-up questions. But you say you work in autism, there's a lot of follow-up questions.

[28:00]  Yeah.

[28:00]  Everyone has a friend, a neighbor, a relative, someone that's been affected by autism. And so suddenly there's a conversation. So all he has to do is introduce me and he knows that that conversation is just gonna keep flowing naturally, right? So I think that happens in my personal life too. It seems like everywhere we go, I run into either people I know in the field or people that are affected by autism. And then I end up Helping or intervening or supporting or doing something. So my kids have grown up with that. They grew up coming to our offices. They grew up doing puzzles with some of my clients. They grew up reading with some of my clients, coming in and doing music therapy. And like, you know, they were always the ones that expected to participate. neither of my kids are interested in going into this field because they also recognize the stress that's in it. but I I feel like it's been a character development for them. I remember my daughter was in fifth grade. And one of the teachers came up to me and said that they had a thing called a buddy bench at school. And it was supposed to be anyone who didn't have someone to play with would go sit on the buddy bench. And your goal was that you go grab them and take them to play. You become a buddy. And they said that she was always the one who would go be a buddy to a special needs kid. And so, like, again, like

[28:00]  Mm.

[28:00]  If that carries over to just character development, then I'm okay if that bleeds into my personal life a little. because it should, right? If we're trying to develop a community and if we're trying to develop a community of acceptance and integration, then we should be carrying some of it over.

[28:00]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so would you say that it's hard to turn it off because this is who you are?

[28:00]  Well yes Yeah

[28:00]  I mean, when you think about it, this is this is life for you, right? Like you're as an entrepreneur and owning is like you gotta be all in. Like this is yeah.

[28:00]  You do, you do. And my kids hear everything. I think about the different things. The you know, the characteristics of of developing skills and autism is breaking them down into smaller parts. So when my kids were younger, I was really good at doing that. My husband be How'd you get them to do that? The way we we teach to me is natural. And so I've used that same teaching style with my kids, right? But even when it comes to managing staff or managing, you know, difficult parents I might work with, my kids have heard me on the phone. They've heard me deal with some of that stuff. And it's produced conversations afterwards. You know, they'll be like, how does someone think they can have a full-time job and come in and behave that way? I agree. I'm glad. I hope you're gonna be a better employee than that. Or, you know, it's it leads to interesting conversations that definitely I try to shut it off, but if it can be a a learning nugget for them, then I might as well take that.

[28:00]  Yeah. Yeah, which I I I can only imagine it is. It's so good that you have them involved. My kids are really young, so they don't know what dad does yet. But I can't wait to the time that I could really show them what that does and and bring him to some of these fundraising events and and they can hear some of these stories because it's I always say it's not really what we what we're telling our kids, is what they're seeing around us. And just because they're witnessing who mom is, they'll be they'll be amazing, you know, kids, adults. But I ask you, what is the legacy that you're looking to leave?

[28:00]  goodness, that's a hard question, isn't it? know, I it's not about I think that's probably age has developed that. I think younger was very I was definitely very type A, achievement, achievement, achievement, and what I wanted to do and what I wanted this to look like. I think one of my she says this a lot. She says that we need to get better at lifting others off. And I I think I agree with that. We can't take it all on ourselves. If I'm gonna take all of this on, we can only grow to here. But if I can lift off three other people, then we can lift to here. But so I I am to a point in my career that I think it's really about developing other people and getting other people to understand some of these concepts and the number of things that it takes to keep that growth moving.

[28:00]  Growth, how many locations? I don't know we discussed that.

[28:01]  so at this point we have three buildings. we have one on the east side, one main, and then we have one for adults. but then the majority of our services happen in people's homes, in schools, in the community. So not all of it is facility based anymore. The big push in services is to be as community-based and natural as possible. but there are still definitely some facility services that are are needed at different ages.

[28:28]  Love it. And and how many would you say, how many like individuals do you see on a yearly basis?

[28:30]  So on a yearly basis, we probably go through about 350. And we're a smaller agency. So the no, that's multiple. Yeah. So the wait lists right now, we've we're actually just talking to our local children's hospital. The wait list is close to three years to get a diagnosis through the autism clinic. And that's it's just

[28:46]  Wow. And that's and that's not that's not one time, that is multiple times throughout the year. Wow. Three years?

[29:03]  It's just staggering. So, and there's not that many outside professionals that are willing to do an autism diagnosis. So it is one of those things that unfortunately the population is growing so dramatically, it is hard to know where this field is going and what the needs are going to be because it is such a spectrum. So where on that spectrum, like where's the largest percentage going to be of need? And what are you training people to do? to and what supports are going to be most needed.

[29:35]  Three years is a long time. and so yeah, you're you're definitely not putting yourself out of business anytime soon, but you're definitely working towards it, I would say. if tomorrow you wake up with a magic wand to fix something in this space, what is the thing you fixing? My last question to wrap this up.

[29:51]  No. transportation. transportation is an unbelievable barrier to mental health services across the board. And I don't think I knew that till I got more into the funding sphere of things because I was always going to people's homes. I was going, you know, and so as we grew and as we started to do different things, the number of people who struggled with transportation to get to appointments regularly, to get to services, to get to their school. and then when you go a little further out from

[29:54]  Mm.

[30:20]  urban areas, it's worse and worse. so we started in our main county of Hamilton County, but as we bridged out to some of the outside counties, it it is such a barrier.

[31:03]  Wow, yeah, I I could my sister doesn't drive, you know, and then the two kids and all the other stuff. So you say that it's like I mean, yeah, I it I guess you are right. You know, here is someone that needs the help but doesn't drive, right? and tries the best she can to trust navigate life like that. So yeah, definitely definitely not a easy task. I would love for you to just be able to share where could people find more information? Website, is there any socials and what kind of information also they'll find on the website for those that may still be listening and watching?

[31:46]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean Sure. So our website is transitions-bh.com. we have information about our services. we also have information and resource pages pages about like other resources. I think reaching out to others is just huge. obviously any of your local DDs, your developmental disabilities councils, they have huge resource pages that help to partner people and Each stage state has their own coalitions that I'm finding. Again, as we get a little more political. I know in our state we have something called Ohio Rise, which is for clients that have like moderate to high needs, and it pairs them with some additional services, things like behavioral health respite so that families have a break. Cause we don't want these kids to get hospitalized, right? We want to give families a break so that they can, you know, work with and support their individual as much as possible. I know in our community we have a program called Healthvine, and these are just very large case management and client referral sources. And I think people need to really lean into them because they're going to listen to your story and they're going to be able to say, it sounds like you need help here, here, and here. Let me help you get attached to these people.

[32:29]  I love it. Amy, thank you so much. I mean, I've been educated. Hopefully those that are listening and watching are also been educated. And thank you so much for just giving your your, I would say almost life to this sector. Something that you just mentioned has not been great for the last 20 years, getting better, but also still a lot of work in progress. Thank you for just being that, for teaching others about what it may look like. if you guys are interested, make sure you guys visit the website, check them out. on how you can also be a part, how you can make a difference in not just your life, but the life that of others that are maybe t suffering with some of these things, family members. So Amy Bailey, it has definitely been a pleasure. My name's Ephraim. We'll catch you on the next one. Latest.