Fanshawe one of three colleges to get Autism program
Fanshawe's introduction to the new Autism and Behavioural Science's program pretty much appeared over night, or as near to it as possible.
Fanshawe was one of three Ontario colleges chosen in March of this year to receive a collaborative $596,000 in funding, in order to get the program on its feet. This is the second stage of its expansion into the college system.
The funding will be split between Fanshawe, St. Clair and Lambton Colleges, and is being used to cover the start-up costs, which includes a large sum for advertising the new program.
“The ministry gave us full-approval for our program and said that our funding would be available to us immediately,” said Pam Skinner, the Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences and Human Services. “Normally these things get worked out first and then you work on delivering your program. But we're going to deliver the program before we're able to organize some of that.”
The one-year program was designed to train those people who are interested in becoming Intensive Behaviour Intervention Therapists (IBI), and admission requirements include a minimum of a college diploma in a related field or university degree in social sciences.
“The Ministry of Education has now directed the schools to provide ABA services beyond the age of six and funded through the government,” explained Danielle Renaud, program coordinator and professor. “The whole idea was to create a program for the college system to deliver to train these people so that the employers didn't have to train their own people because that's not really the business they run.
“They're in the business of service provision not education. So they wanted to colleges to deliver the program.”
The curriculum itself is ministry approved, which means that no matter which college the students graduate from with the diploma, they've all learned the same material, which is an important part of the program because of its specialized nature.
The idea started in 2005 when the government put out a request for program proposals for funding. Fanshawe teamed up at that point with St. Clair College to create a joint proposal for funding which was short-listed.
“The first group that got it was the group that, for and intents and purposes, came first while we came second,” continued Renaud. “The government had the intention to expand later on, and that's when the call came to our group to say ‘Ok you're next on the list, we're going to keep going into southwestern Ontario,' because there are a lot of people in this area who required service.”
The program, despite having been put together last minute, has hit its target enrollment for the year and has nowhere to go but up from here.
“Because of the timeframe we weren't on the OCAS website,” said Skinner. “So students weren't able to apply until almost the very end of June as a choice.
But this was something we really wanted to do.”
Fanshawe was one of three Ontario colleges chosen in March of this year to receive a collaborative $596,000 in funding, in order to get the program on its feet. This is the second stage of its expansion into the college system.
The funding will be split between Fanshawe, St. Clair and Lambton Colleges, and is being used to cover the start-up costs, which includes a large sum for advertising the new program.
“The ministry gave us full-approval for our program and said that our funding would be available to us immediately,” said Pam Skinner, the Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences and Human Services. “Normally these things get worked out first and then you work on delivering your program. But we're going to deliver the program before we're able to organize some of that.”
The one-year program was designed to train those people who are interested in becoming Intensive Behaviour Intervention Therapists (IBI), and admission requirements include a minimum of a college diploma in a related field or university degree in social sciences.
“The Ministry of Education has now directed the schools to provide ABA services beyond the age of six and funded through the government,” explained Danielle Renaud, program coordinator and professor. “The whole idea was to create a program for the college system to deliver to train these people so that the employers didn't have to train their own people because that's not really the business they run.
“They're in the business of service provision not education. So they wanted to colleges to deliver the program.”
The curriculum itself is ministry approved, which means that no matter which college the students graduate from with the diploma, they've all learned the same material, which is an important part of the program because of its specialized nature.
The idea started in 2005 when the government put out a request for program proposals for funding. Fanshawe teamed up at that point with St. Clair College to create a joint proposal for funding which was short-listed.
“The first group that got it was the group that, for and intents and purposes, came first while we came second,” continued Renaud. “The government had the intention to expand later on, and that's when the call came to our group to say ‘Ok you're next on the list, we're going to keep going into southwestern Ontario,' because there are a lot of people in this area who required service.”
The program, despite having been put together last minute, has hit its target enrollment for the year and has nowhere to go but up from here.
“Because of the timeframe we weren't on the OCAS website,” said Skinner. “So students weren't able to apply until almost the very end of June as a choice.
But this was something we really wanted to do.”
