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Hopebridge to expand offering of services for autistic children

The Herald-Tribune - 9/1/2021

Sep. 1—SARASOTA COUNTY — Hopebridge Autism Therapy Centers, an Indianapolis-based company, is expanding into Florida and will open centers in Sarasota, Fort Myers, Brandon and St. Petersburg.

The company is currently offering diagnoses for referrals, with an eye toward providing diagnostic services and therapy to roughly 50 children at each location.

The programs are designed for children from 18 months to 9 years old, though the average age is 5, according to Chris Sutton, the Hopebridge Vice President of Marketing and Business Development.

Hopebridge started scheduling diagnostic assessments for autism spectrum disorder and evaluations for applied behavior analysis therapy in August.

For more information, visit hopebridge.com.

The plan is for the first four centers to open in October.

The Sarasota center will be at 8027 Cooper Creek Blvd., Suite 103, University Park.

Each center can accommodate slightly more than 50 children, with registered behavioral technicians providing one-on-one applied behavioral analysis therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy under the auspices of board-certified behavioral analysts and in consultation with pediatric physicians and psychologists.

The therapist work on behavior patterns with children who may also have a variety of communication challenges ranging from being nonverbal to being verbal but struggling with communicating those thoughts.

The occupational therapy is designed to help those children complete daily tasks.

Hopebridge is a for-profit company that operates under a medical model, generally dealing with autistic children before they are ready for school.

"We focus primarily on early diagnosis and early intervention," Sutton said. "Our mission is to help those children be set up to be more successful for a school environment and eventually obviously having successful teenage years and moving into successful adult life."

Registered behavioral technicians work with each child on individual care plans developed by board-certified behavioral analysts.

Those analysts have developed those plans in consultation with local pediatricians and psychologists.

"Usually there is a team that is working around the child," Sutton said.

The plans eventually serve as the backbone for individual education plans as the children start school.

Hopebridge operates under a cluster management system, so the four initial centers would be operated as one cluster. This area was chosen to be first based on a combination of need and available locations.

The company's goal is to open the four centers in west central Florida by the end of October and eventually open as many as 30 centers in the next 18 months.

With that in mind, Hopebridge would eventually provide therapy for 1,500 autistic children in the state.

Sutton said no experience is required to become a registered behavioral technician and the company trains its own technicians.

Over the past five years, the company has worked with a variety of colleges and universities on developing stronger programs for behavioral analysts, who typically must have a master's degree in applied behavioral analysis.

The company offers fellowship programs for its behavioral technicians to become analysts.

Hopebridge started in 2005 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and currently operates in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio.

Sutton said Hopebride looks for areas where this a backlog of parents seeking diagnoses for their children.

Hopebridge offers provides what's known as 360-degree care, offering applied behavioral analysis therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy in either 40-hour a week or 20-hour-a-week schedules.

"These families will be able to drop their child off at the center and we'll be able to conduct all the therapy that's needed for the child all under the same roof," Sutton said.

Kimberly Treharne, chief operating officer at The Florida Center for Early Childhood said in a prepared statement that the nonprofit has "observed the rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorder throughout our programs and know many families are seeking effective treatments for their children.

"Fortunately, our community is already investing in improving services for this special population," she added. "Hopebridge will be welcomed by local child-serving organizations and invited to join existing efforts to best serve children on the autism spectrum."

Sutton said that based on Hopebridge's past experience, its programs quickly fill up over several months, with a waiting list developing there too.

The company accepts most private insurance plans, as well as Medicaid.

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com.

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