The Autistic Self Advocacy Network condemns unequivocally and without qualification the murder of Alex Spourdalakis and calls on the United States Department of Justice to prosecute his murder under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. The law allows the federal government to prosecute as a hate crime acts of violence when “the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person.” Alex’s murder clearly fits within the intent and purpose of that law.

Many in the media have attempted to excuse Alex’s murder or sympathize with his killers, citing the challenges of his disability and the need to improve the quality and availability of service-provision. Such justifications are not unusual in the aftermath of such atrocities and they remain as inappropriate as ever. Alex Spourdalakis’ murder is the latest in a long strand of similar killings by family members and caregivers. His death is not about services, nor is it about the difficulties associated with his disability. Prior to murdering him, Alex’s mother was offered and refused services from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. In truth, Alex’s murder is about a reprehensible and repulsive ideology all too common within our society that preaches that it is better to be dead than disabled. As long as our society treats the lives of disabled people as worth less than those of the general population, more disabled children and adults will be subject to acts of violence and murder. As a result, we call for the prosecution of Alex’s killers to the fullest extent of the law.

Applications will be screened by ASAN and Freddie Mac staff and not all who apply will receive an interview. If you are interested, we strongly encourage you to send your resume to resumes@autisticadvocacy.org. Many of our past interns have had their employment extended on a long term basis. We hope you’ll consider this opportunity and look forward to reviewing your application!

Architecture & Data Services Intern

Freddie Mac is a dynamic environment where Intern Analysts can grow as professionals by taking on a variety of experiences and responsibilities. Interns will start by learning the basics of how to work within the organization. By working with the Intern program, analysts have access to on the job training and courses available to Freddie Mac.; these will allow analysts to build and strengthen skills, as well as develop a broader set of competencies.

Job Description

Assist team in improving documentation of the department processes. Support organization in creating department reports and metrics against data.

Job Function

1. Create new or update existing process documentation, to reflect organization and process changes.
2. Where feasible, recommend automated solutions that make department processes more efficient.
3. Submit documentation to team members for review and feedback.
4. Participate in discussions with team members about found issues with processes, and offer potential solutions.
5. Maintain tracking log of issues to ensure that all items get addressed for completion.
6. Collect feedback regarding new processes, once implemented, to adjust where needed.

Desired Technical/Other Skills: SQL, MySQL, SharePoint, JAVA, Ruby, Gralis, Instructional writing, process documentation (ARIS), analysis summarization
Skills the Intern will acquire: Process Management, Analysis, tools such as SharePoint, Dreamweaver

SF CFO Strategy, Planning and Development Analyst Intern

Job Functions

1. Create and populate a spreadsheet database storing a history of financial data elements needed for a financial estimation and scenario analysis tool under development
2. Gather the required history of financial data elements from existing Single Family Finance source documents or by querying the data from corporate financial data sources
3. Together with analyst’s manager, design and apply methods as needed to transform required data into usable formats and resolve data discrepancies
4. Time and skillset permitting, may apply Visual Basic programming to automate logic in financial estimation and scenario analysis tool under development

Basic Requirements (required skills ex. MS Access, Java, SQL)

• Moderate proficiency in MS Excel
• Moderate proficiency in MS Office-type word processing and presentation tools
• Familiarity with MicroStrategy or similar database querying and reporting tool
• Attention to detail, good analytical and problem-solving skills, ability to describe and communicate technical challenges clearly and concisely, ability to work independently but also escalate issues promptly, willingness to work on tasks that are structured and repetitive in nature (i.e., gathering many financial data elements for several prior time periods, and organizing these clearly and systematically)
• Familiarity with financial vocabulary such as income, expense, defaults, etc.

Preferred Skills (skills that would be beneficial but not required to do the job)

• Advanced proficiency in MS Excel
• Moderate proficiency with database querying languages or tools such as SQL / RapidSQL, MicroStrategy, or SAS
• Moderate proficiency with Visual Basic for Applications within Excel
• Familiarity with mortgage related financial concepts such as loan inventory and balances, credit losses, default probabilities, and loss severities

Skills the Intern will acquire:

Successful candidate will acquire or build upon and demonstrate proficiency in several highly-transferable skill areas, including
• Querying databases and gathering data from historical source documents
• Identifying and resolving data discrepancies or transforming data into required formats
• Building historical databases
• Communicating technical and financial concepts.

Furthermore, candidate will gain:

• Opportunity to work directly with personnel experienced with Freddie Mac’s business and the mortgage industry
• Familiarity with concepts related to single-family mortgage finance and profitability, evolution of mortgage portfolios over time, and mortgage loan loss reserves and credit losses.

Securities Internship

Job Description

This internship involves strong analytical work related to Freddie Mac’s mortgage-backed securities. The internship starts with an intensive learning environment in which the intern learns about Freddie Mac’s securities and the work that Securitization does to monitor security performance. The intern will be expected to actively participate in our group’s training and learn a variety of analytical reports which will be used by management up to the executive level. The intern will help to setup Giant transactions with Wall Street Dealers.

Job Functions

1. Analyze mortgage-backed security issuance to understand trends and security characteristics
2. Examine mortgage-backed security prepayment speeds, determine any anomalies in speeds and research possible causes
3. Assist with special projects including help creating MBS investor Relations Sharepoint Site and updating Internal Training Presentations about Securitization business

Basic Requirements

• Strong Quantitative and Analytical skills

Preferred Skills

• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Strong work ethic, organizational skills, positive outlook, and a desire to learn
• Works well in a team environment

Skills the Intern will acquire

• knowledge of US Mortgage Market, Freddie Mac’s business, Securitization
• SQL, Excel, Microsoft Access, Powerpoint, SAS, Bloomberg

Testing Internship

Role Responsibility

Test Analyst to support the multiple testing services projects/initiatives in the Application Management area under IT Delivery Services.

Job Functions

1. Create test cases as per Systems Development Life-cycle (SDLC) guidelines and review them with peers
2. Execute and capture test case results of all test cases executed
3. Verify completeness of test case entries – like Pass or fail, actual results – and make sure they are in compliance with SDLC
4. Create defects
5. Check-in documents into Sharepoint
6. Update test lead or Senior Test Engineer of daily test status via email

Tools or Technologies Needed For This Role

UNIX, SQL, Excel

Skills the Analyst Will Acquire

1. Knowledge of SDLC
2. Technical knowledge such as SQL, UNIX, Testing tools
3. Knowledge of running back-end jobs
4. Multitask; develop analytical skills, more process oriented

After a long chilly winter in the northern United States, springtime finally made its appearance, as the weather turned much warmer this week. Flowers are opening, birds are chirping, and a pleasant breeze is blowing in through the open windows. This past winter’s snow and howling winds have faded into memory.

I found myself thinking of a conversation I had with a mother about seven years ago, when sensational autism-awareness stories were all over the media. At that time, advocacy efforts toward acceptance were just starting to get organized. She told me that she was planning to homeschool her young son because he had become overwhelmed with anxiety at school. It wasn’t autism in itself that caused his anxiety, she said—rather, it was a lack of understanding and accommodation at school, along with a general attitude that he was a problem to be managed.

This mother had been working to improve the situation in every way she could, but she felt overwhelmed herself. She couldn’t imagine things changing for the better. There was so much fear and ignorance, she said. However much she did, it never seemed to be enough to make a difference.

I replied that I thought of it like planting seeds. At first there’s very little to be seen—just the cold bare earth, with an occasional tiny seedling here and there. It’s hard to imagine that anything much will ever start to grow. But as the days get longer and the air turns warmer, sprouts pop up all over the place. Leaves unfold, stems lengthen, bees buzz, and heavy blossoms fill the air with fragrance. Before you know it, there’s a beautiful garden just outside your window.

Although the past several years of working toward autism acceptance haven’t always been easy, I believe that the concept has taken firm root and begun to flower. We’ve made it through the cold bleak seed-planting days. Acceptance has become a mainstream idea now. In addition to websites devoted to it such as The Autism Acceptance Project, Paula C. Durbin-Westby’s Autism Acceptance blog, and ASAN’s Autism Acceptance Month site, it is becoming a topic of everyday discussion.

Of course, we still have more to do. Acceptance isn’t just about ideas and conversations in the abstract. Acceptance is an action; and it requires plenty of work, just like a garden does. We’re still learning, as a society, how best to go about it. People are hard at work designing new inclusive education programs, developing AAC devices, improving healthcare access, providing workplace accommodations, and teaching self-advocacy skills. Although ignorance still exists and needs to be dealt with, I think it’s fair to say that there has been a change in the air, such that springtime for autism acceptance has arrived. Society has a better understanding of our community’s concerns and the importance of addressing them.

The tagline for our Autism Acceptance Month website is “Acceptance is an action.” This means that autism acceptance is an active process that requires both a shift in thinking and in action. Similarly, our website will not only provide fact sheets and resources about autism for autistic people, family members, educators, and the general public, but will also serve as a central location for posting and sharing information about autism acceptance-themed events occurring across the United States for the entire month.

You can also take our pledge committing not to give your time, business or attendance to autism events that talk about Autistic people without including us. Will you take the pledge?

We invite you to visit the Autism Acceptance Month website, sign the pledge, and share the resources with your friends and colleagues. Together, we can work to change dialogue about autism from fear, pity, and tragedy to support, acceptance, and empowerment.

Regards,

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Produced through a grant from the Special Hope Foundation, this is the first of four policy briefs on health care access for people with disabilities forthcoming from ASAN in 2013.

Download here!

Supporting Organizations:
National Disability Rights Network
National Down Syndrome Society
Not Dead Yet
Exceptional Parent Magazine

E-mail info@autisticadvocacy.org to have your organization listed as a supporter.

• Community Readings: The Autistic Community is home to some great writers and essayists, some of whom are not yet broadly recognized by the general public. By organizing a local reading event at a bookstore or other public space, you can help introduce members of your community to pieces like Jim Sinclair’s seminal “Don’t Mourn for Us” or Julia Bascom’s “Quiet Hands”. Look to your favorite Autistic authors and bloggers for a place to start – or check out the recently published Loud Hands, Autistic People Speaking anthology for a collection of some of our community’s most important writings.
• Stim-Ins: Have fun while educating people about autism access needs – by holding a “stim-in”, you can gather community members together to enjoy cool stim toys and good company while hearing presentations on how to accommodate the access needs of Autistic community members. Topics to cover may include things like social communication signal badges, accommodating sensory access needs, creating safe spaces, understanding and supporting the neurodiversity movement, what being an “ally” really means and much more. Alternatively, these can be a great way for Autistic community members to congregate and spend time together in Autistic space.
• Film Screenings: The last few years have seen the emergence of some great films involving Autistic community and voice. Flicks like Loving Lampposts, Wretches and Jabberers, Citizen Autistic and many others help send the message that Autistic people are part of the fabric of our society and are not going anywhere. Organize a local screening and facilitate a discussion session afterwards to help make sure that the message of Autism Acceptance is available in your community.
• Panel Presentations: Always a favorite for public education efforts, panels allow you to bring together various leading voices in your local Autistic community. By placing self-advocate voices front and center, a panel presentation may be just what you need to help provide an overview of the neurodiversity movement, self-advocacy or key opportunities and challenges your local Autistic community may be facing in the coming months and years. Panels work well for exploring both basic concepts in autism acceptance and more complicated issues, like self-advocate/parent relations or research policy.

• Much more! We want to hear about what works for you and your community – feel free to come up with ideas not on this list. And remember, when you do, e-mail us at acceptance@autisticadvocacy.org so we can list your event on our website for Autism Acceptance Month.

Dear Commissioner Hamburg:

We, the undersigned representatives of the disability and human rights community, are writing to express our gratitude for your recent actions regarding the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. It is our hope that the FDA will continue to lead policy changes to eliminate the use of contingent electric shock and other aversive interventions. Aversives – the use of pain as a means of behavior modification – are an inherently unsafe and unsupported type of medical treatment. The FDA’s efforts to address this issue are welcomed and we urge you to continue to expand your activities in this area.

In particular, the FDA should undertake further action to prevent the continued use of all Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) devices on residents at the Judge Rotenberg Center. We recommend the immediate revocation of “cleared” status for the GED-1, in light of the long track record of evidence showing its lack of safety. Furthermore, we recommend refusal to grant “cleared” or “approved” status for other iterations of the GED, including the GED-3A and the GED-4.

In order to prevent continued use of these unapproved and potentially dangerous devices on residents, the Judge Rotenberg Center should be ordered to immediately end usage of all GED devices. These devices are used for the stated purpose of aversive behavioral modification – inflicting pain on students when they engage in unwanted behavior. However, there is no empirical evidence that suggests the shocks are effective as a form of treatment in addressing these behaviors. Furthermore, staff members at the Judge Rotenberg Center have been documented to frequently apply the GED as punishment for behaviors that do not endanger residents or others, in direct contravention to its claimed purpose. These abuses are not the actions of isolated individuals but relate to documented policies and practices that are core to the planned use of the GED device.
The GED devices are used to intentionally inflict pain and suffering on the residents of the Judge Rotenberg Center. Electric shocks administered from the GED devices are often used to target behavior that is considered unusual or inconvenient, not necessarily dangerous to either the resident engaging in it or to others. Treatment aimed at compliance rather than facilitating the development of functional skills should not be approved as acceptable or appropriate. The FDA has the potential to play a unique role in eliminating such painful compliance-based treatment by denying approved or cleared status for any GED devices and ordering the Judge Rotenberg Center to stop their usage.

The Judge Rotenberg Center’s practices have been condemned as torture by both the past and present U.N. Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Manfred Nowak and Juan Mendez. The philosophy that undergirds the use of the GED and other aversive “treatments” at the Judge Rotenberg Center is an extreme form of behaviorism that employs abusive practices as a form of therapy. The Judge Rotenberg Center staff enacts unconscionable abuse every time the GED is used on any student, for any reason. Nevertheless, in the absence of strong condemnation, these practices are legitimized in the medical and scientific communities. While the GED-1 device has only received “cleared” status for marketing purposes, this designation has effectively allowed the Judge Rotenberg Center to claim some form of legitimacy for its tactics. An indisputable refusal to grant any form of acknowledgement to the Judge Rotenberg Center’s trademark device would provide a robust platform from which advocates and policymakers can continue to challenge the use of torture as a means of treatment.

According to their Fall 2012 Newsletter, there are currently 230 residents at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Accepting their claim that contingent electric shock is necessary to control behavior would require one to believe that these are the only 230 people in the country with severe behavioral issues. In fact there are thousands of such individuals with a range of diagnoses, the vast majority of whom are leading lives of quality and meaning with the support of positive behavioral approaches. This fact is further demonstrated by the many individuals who left the Judge Rotenberg Center with their behaviors as severe as they were upon entry and now are doing very well with supports provided by community agencies across the country.

We are committed to advocating for effective supports and services for those who need them, and to ending the use of painful aversives as a means of treatment. It is our hope that the FDA will continue to enforce regulations on acceptable types of treatment and that it will condemn the use of pain as a means of behavior modification as unsafe, unscientific and beyond the boundaries of medical practice.

In recognition of the importance of this issue, we would like to schedule a meeting to discuss these issues in more detail prior to the completion of FDA’s review regarding the GED device. We look forward to being in contact and appreciate your continued engagement on these issues.

Regards,

National Organizations
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
American Association of People with Disabilities
Autism National Committee
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Disability Rights International
Easter Seals
The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals
National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS)
National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND)
The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL)
National Disability Rights Network
National Down Syndrome Society
National Empowerment Center
Not Dead Yet
Parent to Parent USA
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
TASH
United Spinal Association

State/Local Organizations
Access Living
Alaska Youth and Family Network
Alliance Colorado Communities United for People with Developmental Disabilities
American Habilitation Services
The Arc Michigan
The Arc of Colorado
The Arc of Greater Cleveland
The Arc of Nebraska
The Arc of Southside
Autism Institute, University of San Diego
Autism Spectrum Differences Institute of New England, Inc.
Boston Center for Independent Living
Catholic Charities Disabilities Services
The Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University
The Center for Leadership in Disability
Center for Public Representation
Center for Self-Determination
Colorado Bluesky Enterprise
Community Access Program
Community Living Services, Inc.
Community Resource Alliance
Community Support Network
Delaware Developmental Disabilities Council
Delaware Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens
Disability Advocates Advancing Our Healthcare Rights
Disability Law Center
Disability Policy Consortium
Disability Savvy
Facilitate, Advocate, Communicate, Educate (FACE)
Foothills Gateway
Garden Center Services
Georgia Advocacy Office
Heroes of the Game, Inc.
Hope House Foundation
Institute for Health Quality and Ethics
The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University
Jay Nolan Community Services
Keystone Human Services
The Learning Community for Person Centered Practices
Liberty Resources, Inc.
Life Enrichment Advancing People
Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
MPOWER
My Own Place, Inc.
Occupy the Judge Rotenberg Center
Our Children Left Behind
Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities
Rainbow of Challenges Inc.
The Resource Exchange
Respect ABILITY Law Center
RHA Howell, Inc.
Riverside Training Centers, Inc.
Second Thoughts
Self-Advocacy Association of New York State, Inc.
Service Coordination, Inc.
Shared Support Maryland, Inc.
St. Peter’s Adult Learning Center, Inc.
Strive Colorado
Support Development Associates
TASH New England
Values Into Action Pennsylvania
Vision For Equality
Volunteers of America Chesapeake
The Wyoming Institute for Disabilities

Last year, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, along with Not Dead Yet and the National Council on Independent Living, held a Day of Mourning for people with disabilities killed by their relatives and caregivers.

Day of Mourning began as a response to the murder of George Hodgins, a 22-year-old autistic man from California, and to the way people were talking about his death. Far too often, when a disabled person is murdered by a caregiver, journalists write as though it is the disabled victim who has perpetrated a crime simply by existing. In discussing the killing, people say that we should feel sorry for the murderer, because they had to live with a disabled relative. When a disabled person is murdered, many people act as though the murder victim’s life, not their death, was a tragedy.

On March 30^th, 2012, we held vigils in 18 cities to remember those we have lost, and to remind the world that their lives had value.

On March 31^st, 2012, a 4-year-old autistic boy named Daniel Corby was drowned in a bathtub by his mother.

There is so much work to be done to change public perceptions about the worth and the quality of our lives. That is why the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network will be holding Day of Mourning again this year on Friday, March 1st. And I need your help to organize vigils across the country.

The first time I organized a vigil, I was very scared to do it, but it was not as hard as I feared. If you are interested in leading a vigil in your area, you begin by finding a good spot for it, making sure you can gather a group of people there, and spreading the word to your local community. If you want to organize a vigil, contact me at  zgross@autisticadvocacy.org for instructions and support. I will help you find a location and to plan and publicize your event.

On March 1^st, we will remember our dead and take a stand against the violence facing our community. I hope to see you there.

In solidarity,
Zoe Gross
Autistic Self Advocacy Network