Alright – so, Minnesota Autism Center who is arguably the biggest ABA therapy provider in Minnesota (not the best though) has again failed to protect children with autism from abuse and neglect.
Katie Strong who is a licensed professional clinical counselor and by law is a mandated reporter has failed to report abuse in MAC Mankato location. Ms. Keri Adams who is the clinical supervisor there has been charged by the Mankato authorities. (finally a prosecutor with the guts to stand up for kids with autism against big bad-ass bully MAC). Ms. Adams claims that she only reported the abuse to the program supervisor which in this case was Ms. Strong. Needless to say and not surprisingly Ms. Adams nor Ms. Strong reported this to the authorities or DHS as required.
MAC Mankato center was given a warning by the Mankato police department before this incident in December of 2015 when they also failed to report a child that hit his head in their center so bad that he was vomiting.
This is exactly why our state needs to license these blood sucking ABA providers. We can’t have children getting hurt and covering up because owners and directors want to bury it. As an autism mom – this pisses me off to my core and as an autism advocate this frustrates me. Why can’t DHS wake the hell up and do something about this. DHS needs to prevent such incidents by holding ABA providers accountable. There must be some kind of statewide policy to protect these vulnerable kids with ASD and DHS needs to take the lead.
Above words do not reflect any agency, candidate or committee.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate