Actress and mother Holly Robinson Peete has an autistic child. Her and her husband have opened up a free autism center with plans to duplicate it across the country.
Holly has been an advocate for autism awareness since her son RJ was diagnosed. She’s been on a mission to help other parents get help and understand the resources out there.
Robinson Pete told USA Today, “It’s still very confusing. Fortunately, we have some pretty great organizations that can guide you. Autism Speaks is one of them. They have 100-day kits for the first 100 days after a diagnosis for what you can do. And they have a lot of community resources and a database on their website. You have organizations like ours, HollyRod, which gives compassionate care to families. We’re working really hard to erect a compassionate care center where families can go. Hopefully that will be the model that can spread across the country. The one I look at as the Holy Grail is St. Jude, where families can go and deal with their children’s cancer without having to worry about paying for it. Where is the St. Jude for autism? That’s in my sights, doing something like that.”
Robinson Peete expressed that now that her son is a teenager it’s been a bit of a challenge for the family since some of the behaviors that they thought RJ was over, are coming up again. But she stays persistent and hopes to make everything as easy as possible for others.
