Family, Adult & Child Therapies
A blog of personal opinion from Zoey Giesberg: The month of April has always held a special place in my heart. Spring is fresh in the air, it’s still early in the year but not too much so, and the weather is pretty cooperative in the not-too-hot-but-not-too-cold way. But it’s most likely due to the fact that it’s my birth month, as I was born on the eighth. In fact, April holds a lot of birthdays of people I love…
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In recent months, the 115th United States Congress has made repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) part of its agenda. The current Congress plans to repeal the act in stages through diminishing funding through the federal budget, then instructing various House and Senate committees during the budget resolution process and having them vote on it before the Full House and Senate branches vote. They currently say they will replace the ACA after repealing it but it is not certain what…
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FACT is pleased to formally introduce Sonni Bendetson as the new Director of Adult and Transition Programs! Sonni brings to FACT her passion for creating innovative services that empower young adults with special needs to pursue their personal, academic, and employment goals. Sonni earned her B.A. in Child Studies and Human Development at Tufts University, and her M.A. in Special Education at Vanderbilt University, where she focused on transition and employment for adults with special needs. Sonni has helped adults with…
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By Zoey Giesberg, MSW If one of the biggest characteristics of being human is having many emotional states, there seems to be this weird idea that autistic people have an innate inability to understand or express emotions. This would in turn lead autistic people to become hard to connect to, let alone engage with other people. It’s kinda like Spock from the original Star Trek series – a purely logical creature who has to constantly ask his crew-mates why human…
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As 2016 came to a close, GAP celebrated the holiday season with a bang! Check out some pictures of their festivities!
By Zoey Giesberg, MSW I have almost 13,000 songs in my iTunes library. You read that right. 13,000 songs. You’re probably wondering who could possibly listen to that much music in one lifetime. Well, I can. Or at least I can listen to my playlist of favorite songs over and over again. That playlist has over 2,000 songs and grows by the day. Put it on shuffle and I could always hear something different over five and a half days…
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By Zoey Giesberg, MSW At last month’s FACTx conference, I gave a presentation on California’s Self Determination law. It’s a complicated law that revolves a regional center’s client ability to control what services they get, and more information on it can be found here. In my presentation, I was joined by two students in the GAP program to talk about our personal experiences and what the law would mean to us. But while I was trying to relay information on…
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GAP has always been a place of fun, and this Halloween they threw some scares and spooks into their annual Halloween bash! Check out the pictures below of fun and mayhem!
By Linda Andron-Ostrow, LCSW On October 14 and 15th, our old friend TED made his presence felt at the Electric Lodge in Venice through the voices of over 30 individuals whose lives have been touched by autism and other disabilities. I can say that it was as amazing as I hoped it would be. Families, professionals, interns and individuals with disabilities were in the audience, both live and remote, where wisdom was shared 15 minutes at a time. And as…
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By Simone Stewart The pantry at the Church on Pearl in Santa Monica, runs every Wednesday afternoon from 2:30 to 5:30pm. They provide a service to people in need of food in the Los Angeles community. They offer fresh produce, canned goods, dairy and poultry. There have been many students at GAP that have taken an interest in working at the pantry. It truly symbolizes how a community can come together and help individuals and families who need assistance. The…
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