2023–2024 xMinds Program Year Highlights

This year xMinds celebrated its 15th year as a nonprofit serving the autism community of Montgomery County, Maryland

Priority 1: Deepening parent empowerment by providing families with information and resources

• Provided 247 free special education consults to families seeking information about autism services in Montgomery County, Maryland.

• Presented 19 online speaker events, broadening the knowledge base and perspectives of parents, caregivers, and educators who support autistic students.

• Developed and offered the Bullying & Autism Series, a four-session speaker series presented with co-sponsor the Autism Society of Maryland, designed to address the unique challenges of bullying and autism and provide strategies to families to combat it. 

• Facilitated a three-session Primers on MCPS Placements, in which MCPS staff members shared information about the special education services that serve autistic students. 

• Hosted 6 autistic presenters through our speaker events, as part of our continued emphasis on centering autistic voices, so that we can learn from the real experts.

• Hosted the in-person Annual IEP Clinic at a larger venue, offering 55 families the opportunity to have a free 20-minute individual consultation with an educational advocate. The clinic featured 12 professional advocates and attorneys, 5 professional sponsors, and 35 volunteers. As part of our IEP clinic, we held two presentations detailing a comprehensive explanation of an IEP and how to navigate disagreements with the IEP team.

• Provided individual guidance to 193 families who requested assistance advocating for appropriate special education services, with help from our volunteer Special Education Advocacy Team

• Updated and expanded our webpage on classroom Accommodations that are helpful to autistic students — everything from kinesthetic seating to speech-to-text software. The Accommodations webpage is our most popular resource, receiving 33,010 pageviews during the past program year. 

• Updated the xMinds Guide to MCPS Special Education Placements for Autistic Students with the latest information, and added the 2024 video presentations from MCPS staff about special education services. Updated the interactive maps of MCPS special education services to reflect changes made to program locations. Families rely on this tool to make educated placement decisions for their autistic students. 

• Developed new content for the website and launched: 1) an Anti-Bullying page to the website to help arm families with the information, strategies, and resources needed to respond should a child be subjected to bullying. 2) a Restraint and Seclusion page providing important information and resources to help parents protect their child from these harmful practices and 3) a curated and annotated list of children’s literature featuring autistic characters.

• Updated and expanded our Summer Camp Guide, a popular resource used by almost 2,000 users, directing families to camps and programs that autistic students have enjoyed in past years.

• Offered four targeted monthly virtual discussion groups, providing opportunities for parents/guardians to connect and share resources.

• Featured guest speakers periodically during our discussion groups to address concerns of the group and to disseminate important and relevant information about topics such as stress and autism, the SEE US initiative offering free special education advocacy to black students, the Resource Finder at Kennedy Krieger Institute offering personalized free assistance to access resources about developmental disabilities, presentations from the Autism/IDD unit of MCPD, and updates on the MCPS budget cuts and its effects to autism services.

• Hosted 207 families at playground and open gym meetups for families with autistic elementary and preschool students, offering opportunities to build community and providing a judgment-free place for autistic children to play.

• Attracted 56,064 unique visitors to our online resources.

• Expanded our efforts to publicize our free resources and services to parents by staffing tables at 5 local school resource fairs, the Autism Society of Maryland’s annual Every Step Counts Walk with over 700 attendees, the Shine Brighter Together event to celebrate Autism Acceptance Month, and the Autism Acceptance Day Celebration in Annapolis, MD.
  

Priority 2: Increasing and diversifying xMinds’ reach

• Continued our efforts to reach Spanish-speaking parents of autistic students by publishing a Spanish version of the monthly xMindsWire online newsletter, offering free consults with an educational advocate in Spanish at our IEP Clinic and through our Volunteer Advocacy Team, providing simultaneous Spanish interpretation at all our speaker events, and making a Spanish recording available afterward on our YouTube Channel.

• Helped connect Spanish-speaking families of autistic students so they could build community, through our WhatsApp group “xMinds en Español,” and our virtual monthly discussion group for Spanish-speaking parents. 

• As a member of Enriqueciendo Vidas (EV), a coalition of 24 Maryland disability organizations, continued to advocate for the Hispanic community to have equitable access to disability services in Maryland. Signed onto letters and legislation to require state agencies to provide resources in Spanish and fund grants to nonprofits to help in breaking down barriers so underserved populations can access services.

• Provided information and resources to MCPS Parent Community Coordinators and Pupil Personnel Workers, staff that support families and students impacted by poverty, language barriers, or other challenges —offering a new avenue to reach parents in need of our resources and support.

• Increased xMinds presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X offering multiple platforms for connecting with the community to share information and resources.

• Strengthened our connection to the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community through our BIPOC Outreach Committee, which offers the monthly People of the Global Majority parent discussion group and hosted two speaker events and our popular annual SplashPark social event.

• Featured guest speakers discussing topics pertinent to the BIPOC and Spanish-speaking communities.

• Forged a partnership with the statewide nonprofit, the Autism Society of Maryland (AUSOM) as they expanded into Montgomery County. Co-sponsored the 4-part Bullying & Autism speaker series and a BINGO Night social.

• Offered ALL xMinds programming for free, including speaker events, advocacy assistance, open gym meetups, teen social events, the annual Splashpark get-together, parent discussion groups and online resources, to ensure that resources and events are available to all families, regardless of their financial status. 

Priority 3: Promoting improved educational experiences for ASD students in MCPS through teacher and staff training and through advocacy concerning systemic problems

• Distributed $12,080 through our Educator Grant Program to 169 educators of autistic students in Montgomery County. The program enabled 161 educators to purchase autism-related supplies and 8 to attend autism-related trainings, in all cases with the goal of providing better support for their autistic students. 

• Collaborated closely with MCPS special education staff to hold three separate Primers on MCPS Placements for Autistic Students, with each focusing on a different segment — preschool, elementary and secondary. Brought the voices of 19 MCPS staff members to our Primers on MCPS Placements, providing the opportunity for parents to ask questions to staff and express concerns. 

• Consistently communicated with MCPS special education administrators and the Autism Services department, exchanging information about MCPS autism programs and the local autism community. Participated as stakeholders in the MCPS development of the Special Ed Budget and Staffing Plan.

• Provided resources to families referred by the MCPS Parent Community Coordinators (PCCs) and Pupil Personnel Workers, expanding our reach to vulnerable families in need of special education support. 

Priority 4: Shaping special education public policy

• Established and expanded the Policy Committee and added a new chair and 7 new members to influence public policies improving outcomes for autistic students. The Policy Committee sent letters to MCPS, the Board of Education, County Councilmembers, and the media to raise awareness on issues such as  the teacher shortage crisis, the adverse effects of proposed budget and staffing cuts, and closure of an autism program.

• As a member of the Educational Advocacy Coalition (a group of more than 50 organizations and individuals that represent the interests of special education students and their families in Maryland) proposed, lobbied for, and helped to enact legislation impacting school districts throughout the state. EAC set a record by articulating positions on 20 bills and spearheading the passage of a law that will offer free legal and special education advocacy services to parents and caregivers of a child with a disability. Other legislation will create accessible play spaces and textbook accessibility.

• As a member of Enriqueciendo Vidas (EV), a coalition of 24 Maryland disability organizations, continued to advocate for the Hispanic community to have equitable access to disability services in Maryland. Signed onto letters and legislation to require state agencies to provide resources in Spanish and fund grants to nonprofits to help in breaking down barriers so underserved populations can access services.
  

• Accompanied autistic self-advocates to the state capital to deliver invitations and autism information packets to state lawmakers. Joined a coalition of 10 autism organizations in Maryland to plan and host Maryland's first Autism Acceptance Day in Annapolis on April 2, 2024. The luncheon was attended by officials from the Maryland Senate, House of Delegates, and the Maryland Department of Disabilities. 

Priority 5: Preparing ASD students in Montgomery County for life

• Co-hosted with the Autism Society of Maryland an Autistic Self-Advocates Panel on bullying and autism. The event featured a moderator and three panelists who were all autistic self-advocates discussing their life experiences involving bullying in school, the workforce and their community and shared how these experiences impacted them.

• Offered our monthly Let’s Talk Transitions virtual parent discussion group for MoCo parents/guardians of autistic students in middle or high school to share information and resources for supporting their children's transition into adulthood.

• Renewed membership and status as an approved MCPS Student Service Learning (SSL) organization by fulfilling requirements that included in-person training and registration compliance for SSL status. xMinds is designated by the blue MCPS SSL graduation cap icon on our account on the Montgomery County Volunteer Center website.

• Launched our first social events for autistic teens kicked off by a Star Wars-themed May the Fourth Be With You party attended by 153 people and a Dungeons and Dragons summer club.

Priority 6: Growing our organization

• Increased readers of our monthly newsletter, xMindsWire from about 4,000 to 6,000 subscribers.

• Continued to grow the xMinds Preschool/Elementary Parent Outreach Committee, which was launched in Spring 2022 and is now serving over 400 families, with an aim to create a supportive community for MoCo families with young autistic children.

• Recruited and trained 13 volunteers under the supervision of a professional special education advocate to provide families with free team consults.

• Welcomed the valuable contributions of over 70 active volunteers, assisting in our programming through our working committees or events; 8 high school students earning SSL hours, including 4 autistic students; and 10 professional educational advocates and education lawyers in our local community who provided their expertise for free to our parent community.

• Raised $58,882 through our Bike to the Beach fundraiser — money that’s used to fund our speaker series, develop our online resources, assist with our volunteer advocacy program, fund educator grants, and more!

• Benefited from the help of new independent contractors who continued to expand our website resources, develop our social media presence, maintain our bookkeeping, and file our fourth Form 990-EZ with the IRS.

• Ushered in a new executive director and welcomed back our part-time assistant who had interned with xMinds for over two years.  

• Raised over $97,000 from our generous donors (including a $5000 grant) and $3,740 from professional members who help sustain our work (FY 23).

• Earned a 2023 Gold Seal of Transparency from Guide Star charity rating agency.
  

See our past accomplishments in 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23