ECHO Autism Role Call

Get to Know the ECHO Autism Team

Expanding Access to Care 

ECHO Autism is a virtual learning network of providers offering real-time access to autism and behavioral experts. In Spring 2024, Smile A While Foundation will be rolling out ECHO Autism Jamaica to expand access to therapy resources for special needs children and families. The ECHO Autism program is structured for community practitioners to present real-time patient cases, using video conferencing technology to ECHO Autism’s panel of specialists, or the “Hub Team,” who will provide recommendations based upon their high-level expertise and robust experience. ECHO Autism Hub Teams are made up of different types of autism professionals that maximize learning by providing information from multiple perspectives.

As our team continues to work hard to get our ECHO Autism Jamaica location open for operation, a current step is putting together the interdisciplinary team that advises providers to support best practices in autism care for medical, behavioral and education concerns. This innovative system allows professionals and caregivers to increase their confidence in identifying and treating autism and expand their knowledge about treatments and solutions.

Let’s take a look at the different roles involved in the ECHO Autism Hub Team.  

ECHO Autism Role Call

• Primary Care Providers: The ECHO Autism Primary Care providers aim to increase local access to high-quality health care for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The ECHO Autism Primary Care team meets twice monthly for 90-minute sessions.

• Advanced Diagnostics: The ECHO Autism Advanced Diagnostics team consists of Psychologists who work to increase local access to high-quality, more complex, ASD diagnostic evaluations. The ECHO Autism Advanced Diagnostics team meets twice monthly for 90-minute sessions.

• Mental Health Licensed Therapists: The ECHO Autism Mental Health Licensed Therapist team is made up of licensed therapists whose role is to increase the access to mental health therapeutic modalities modified for individuals with autism. The Autism Mental Health Licensed Therapist team meets twice monthly for 90-minute sessions.

• Behavior Solutions in Hospitals: The ECHO Autism Behavioral Health team is the hospital-based health care group of nurses, physicians, social workers, child life specialists, security, psychologists, etc. who are working to improve care for individuals in hospital settings and improved wellbeing for the staff providing care in the hospitals. This group meets more often with six weekly 75-minute sessions. 

• Adult Healthcare: The ECHO Autism Adult Healthcare providers are a group of Adult Primary Care Providers working to increase access to medical professionals equipped to support patients with autism in adulthood. This group meets twice monthly for 75-minute sessions.

• Early Intervention +: The ECHO Autism Early Intervention + team consists of speech-Language Pathologists & Occupational Therapists, Early Interventionists, special educators who collaborate to increase access to evidence-based autism focused early intervention for children with autism from ages 12 months to 8 years. This group meets twice monthly for 90-minutes. 

• Advocates: The ECHO Autism Advocates are the passionate family members and people with autism who we hope to increase access to well-equipped advocates, who understand systems and make connections to high-quality, evidence-based resources. This group meets twice monthly for 90-minute sessions.

An Interdisciplinary Team For Best Care

One of the aspects that makes the ECHO Autism model special is the vast talent of professionals working to support a single individual. During each session, a single individual has access to a wide variety of health care professionals who can watch, listen, and learn. The ultimate goal of ECHO Autism Jamaica is to allow special needs children and their families  access to best-practice autism care in their home communities. 

Support ECHO Autism Jamaica 

We hope to open ECHO Autism Jamaica in Spring of 2024 and while our team is working hard to open ECHO Autism Jamaica, we need your help to make this project the most impactful it can be for our children and families. A few easy ways you can join us:

1. Subscribe to our email list to get the most up to date information regarding ECHO Autism Jamaica.
2. SHARE, share, share our social media posts with your network in order to further our reach to individuals or families that may be in need of our ECHO Autism Jamaica program. (Facebook | Instagram)
3. Make a donation to support our ECHO Autism Program. It costs appropriately $450/session to provide care to one child – your gift can help support therapeutic care to autistic children and their families. Donate today.