The Island Autism Group has finished the heart of its ambitious planned campus, a new space intended to support youth and adults on Martha’s Vineyard with autism.
The first phase of the Island Autism Center campus, the Hub House, was built entirely from private donations over a year and a half; it’s a welcoming, wood-paneled building on West Tisbury farmland.
Youth with autism will participate in expanded afterschool and summer programs at the new facility, and many autistic Vineyarders will also get practice toward employment on-Island, key to more independent living.
Inside, much of the Hub House is designed with what group co-founder Kate Devane calls “practice spaces,” meant to train people with autism for jobs and a life on the Vineyard.
The house boasts a mock mailroom for sorting mail. There’s a community micro-farm that produces around 70 eggs per day. And there’s a brand-new commercial kitchen.
“In an ideal world, we draw in a couple of people who are interested in baking and cooking, and teaching about baking and cooking,” Devane told The Times.
If all goes to plan, the Hub House will be the first part of a much larger project that would be the first of its kind on the Island. By around 2028, Devane hopes to have added two housing projects to the campus that will be reserved for people with autism over 22 years old.
Phase two is currently being built across from the Hub House, and will provide two four-bedroom apartments for people who are not able to live independently. Phase three will involve three two-bedroom cottages for slightly more independent individuals. In all, the center is planned to house 12 to 18 residents.
Many families, including Devane’s, have needed to arrange off-Island living situations when their autistic children become adults. While the center won’t fix that problem, it is designed to provide the help that residents need.
Already, the Hub House has produced Purple Paws dog treats, courtesy of the high school’s Voyager special education program. Going forward, the center’s job training will rely on partnerships with Vineyard organizations and businesses.
But jobs aren’t all the house will provide, as it has room to expand the group’s various afterschool and summer programs, social space, and even a porch for aerial yoga equipment. “Movement is really good for people with autism,” said Devane. The house is also handicap-accessible, and has laundry equipment, a pantry, and a cubby room.
Devane told The Times that she has looked far and wide to inspire the center’s design, while still looking to serve a Vineyard community in need.
“What is here, what is available, what the community provides dictates to a certain extent what we needed to provide,” she said.
She hopes to have all the Hub House’s programs up and running by January, and the Island Autism Group also plans to run programming ideas through a committee of staff and board members, other professionals, and adults with autism.
Currently, the group is interviewing employees to help with programs for autistic individuals 22 years and older.
Upstairs at the Hub House is living space for professionals, not yet filled. Devane envisions visiting mental health professionals in fellowship with the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.
There is also an impressive apartment upstairs for a “quarterback position.” This employee will not be on call 24/7, but will help autistic residents with the many responsibilities that come with adulthood, and tend to any emergencies. Devane hopes to find a “quarterback” after some of the center’s housing is complete, sometime around 2026.
“It’s a big job, but it’s also a big job that has a really nice apartment on Martha’s Vineyard,” she noted.
In the completed Hub House, Devane said that the center’s design is the result of 10 years of discussions, a feasibility survey, and a parent survey, as well as her trips to the First Place center in Arizona, Sweetwater Spectrum in Sonoma, Calif., and the Higashi School model in Japan.
Though touring other centers has been a valuable experience, planning any space on-Island poses unique challenges.
“[Other centers] are only adult programming, but that’s because they’re not on an Island, right?” Devane noted.
She said that the many uses of the Island Autism Center plan are inspired by a ripple-effect philosophy, which she learned from Sweetwater.
“You start with your four-bedroom house, and that’s your center point. And then you get comfortable with that group. And then you get comfortable with the group that’s in the other four-bedroom house,” Devane said. “And then you get comfortable with all the people who are in the day program, who are not the people that are in your four-bedroom, but are the next sort of a larger group. And then you get comfortable with the people who come to the farmstand, and the volunteers, and things like that. And then you go out into the community and you get comfortable with the community.”
Very inspiring.
Thank you.
Comments are closed.