👍 Facebook: Join the Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Hub for local events, resources, and ongoing support ♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 Last week my friend Yessika, founder of ViP 305, invited me to their Homestead campus to talk to a room of high school volunteers about what it's like being an autism dad. That's 27 teenagers sitting through a Q&A about the A word. If you know a teenager looking for volunteer opportunities that aren't just...
3 days ago • 2 min read
👍 Facebook: Join the Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Hub for local events, resources, and ongoing support ♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 Saturday I spent the day at The Children's Trust Family Expo, and it was less a resource fair than a reunion. That's what a good Miami event does, it puts the whole community in one room and lets the rest take care of itself. The week ahead has back-to-school drives, sensory-friendly mornings at the museums,...
4 days ago • 9 min read
👍 Facebook: Join the Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Hub for local events, resources, and ongoing support ♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 This Friday is the last quiet morning before the backpacks take over. Every police department, mall, and church in the county picked this weekend to hand out school supplies, so somewhere within 15 minutes of you, a kid is getting a free backpack and a haircut before Monday. The sales tax holiday runs through...
7 days ago • 3 min read
♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 On July 15, 2026, at 2:30 pm, in a D.C. Senate office, 10 Capitol Police officers did the one thing that in 2016 could have kept behavior therapist Charles Kinsey from getting shot by police on a North Miami street: they slowed down. A man with severe autism had gone into crisis, the floor was evacuated, and the standoff ended with the autistic man walking out on his own 2 feet, and nobody hurt. That's not luck,...
8 days ago • 4 min read
👍 Facebook: Join the Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Hub for local events, resources, and ongoing support ♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 Today we honor Wilbur Hawke. In 1994 he started the first Florida fathers group for dads of children with disabilities: Florida Fathers Network. He didn't fit the support groups mothers had designed, so he created his own and called the workshop "Dadvocate." I carry that word in my newsletter every week, and...
10 days ago • 2 min read
♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 The ADA turned 36 on Sunday and Miami Beach commemorates it Tuesday with the Karen Peterson Dancers, a dance company with performers in wheelchairs and dancers with conditions like Multiple Sclerosis. The rest of the week doesn't slow down. Wednesday has 3 meetups across the county for toddlers to adults with IDD. Friday & Saturday the Florida Youth Council sends young leaders with disabilities ages 15-30 to...
11 days ago • 9 min read
♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 🇺🇸 Disability activists at the Capitol Crawl, March 12, 1990, four months before the ADA became law. The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 36 on Sunday. Signed into law on July 26, 1990, it's the reason there's a ramp at the school entrance and a right to your kid's IEP a school can't wave off. Miami-Dade marks it today at the Stephen P. Clark Center from 11am to 2pm. The rest of the weekend: Mark Twain's...
14 days ago • 2 min read
♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 On Sunday, Marc Cucurella won the World Cup with Spain. What he does before signing with any club is why he's in today's edition: he checks the schools and therapies for his non-verbal autistic son, Mateo, before the salary and before the trophies. "My family comes first," he told El País. The full story's below. Closer to home, the Parent Leadership Network trains local parents and caregivers to do the same for...
16 days ago • 3 min read
♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩 Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩 AI moved to the center of the autism conversation this week. Stanford researchers reported that a chatbot boosted autistic adults' real-world empathy. Yale mapped how autistic brains process faces differently. The tools are showing up faster than anyone's stopping to ask what they cost. That question is the whole episode this week: AI and Autism: The Risk Nobody's Talking About. It's the side of the story the...
17 days ago • 1 min read