Core Energy Sources of CFA
The Soul
Initiative by Late Mrs. Nidhi Behal
The foundation stone of CFA was laid on 5th August 2020.
Care for Autism (CFA) has its roots embedded in the care and concern of a mother who wanted comprehensive treatment for her child with Autism under one roof. Late Mrs. Nidhi Behal, through this organization, gifted her child, Sayyam, and many other children like him the space where they can learn to live and love life.
CFA as Her Dream Project
Care for Autism was her dream and desire. She wanted an institute in Jalandhar, Punjab, for children with special needs that embraces all their requirements. The foundation stone of CFA was laid on 5th August 2020. The short period she knew she was left with after she was diagnosed with fourth-stage cancer surprisingly energized her to put her heart and soul into the starting of CFA.
Gradually, her health issues started worsening till she bid farewell to her family and beloved son Sayyam. Raghu Behal considering his wife’s dream as his priority and reason for existence started working on it. He dived into the project, intending to deliver the best to every child with special needs just the way his wife wanted.
CFA - Our Organization
Care for Autism has everything from diet plans of children to integration with the Special Olympics community to aid the growth and development of our children. Clinical Psychologist Atul Madan is the Chief Advisor for this centre.
It is under his supervision and guidance, CFA-trainers channelize all activities. In-built infrastructure along with the team of Special Educators, Speech Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Sports Coaches aim for the overall growth of a child.
The Body
Mr. Raghu Behal - Managing Director
It is a privilege for me to run an institute that aims, attempts and works to make life of special children better and independent.
I being the parent of special child very deeply understand the need of special children and a pain parent feels when he faces the dearth of adequate qualified professionals and other rehabilitative services. The shoe has pinched me and therefore I empathize with the pain of parents and attempt my level best to provide complete and comprehensive services to our children in the best possible ways.
The energy and inspiration that draws me to bring best of infrastructure, services, and staff at Care For Autism for special need children comes from my beloved soul mate Late Nidhi Behal. All she wanted was a unit that does its best for children with special needs and this has now become my sole motive and purpose of existence.
Care for Autism works with the vision of providing platform that caters to the comprehensive needs of our children. It includes Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Special Education and complete Psychological Services.
The Mind
Dr. Atul Madan - Clinical Psychologist
MAAP, MBA, FCECLD, MPhil (Clin. Psy) – UGC-NET Qualified
Challenges in the journey of life are not uncommon, what makes you outstanding is the zeal to fight them with energy and efforts.
In my professional career of examining, and diagnosing neurodevelopmental disorders I experienced helplessness when people asked me about a comprehensive unit that could cater to all the needs of ASD, ADHD and Learning/ Intellectual Disability. After diagnosis when parents are told about the findings of child and recommended that there is a need for remedial training there first request would be to guide them further where to take their children to avail therapeutic and training needs? I had no satisfactory answer to this question as within the city as well state, no doubt therapeutic centers are available but the facilities available are in pieces not as a whole or in comprehensive manner. Over the period I also observed that due to the dearth of these rehabilitative units in ratio to the increasing demand for such units many centers started providing services but not by the experts and trained staff which again left me worried and somewhere forced me to look for a solution to it.
Providing a comprehensive unit with all therapies and trainings to be given by the experts and trained professionals was the vision with which I joined Care For Autism Foundation and since then there has been no looking back. Challenges and struggles are not uncommon to us to make it happen but overcoming the hurdles and progressing to get the best for our children in every way dominates the zeal of CFA team.
Ever since the start we have been promoting growth of children enrolled with us, the staff working with us and parents associated with us. Experiencing how scarce is the availability of professionals dealing with special children we added to our goals psycho-educating and training the parents to become Special Educators for their children. To accomplish this mammoth task collective efforts were made and various innovative programs were introduced to attain it.
Another perspective that led us to introduce the concept of “exit plan” is the vision to not to make CFA a special school but keep it functional as a rehabilitative center providing initial support to special children and their parents through trainings. Slowly and steadily when parents become skilled and themselves can cater to special needs of their children then start exit plan of the child and with time fade away the dependency of parents and children on any special center. The possibilities we want our children to explore are endless. When we execute exit plan at the same time, we introduce School Readiness Program. It is an initiative to help special children join and adjust in mainstream schools.
