California Chapter of the National Autism Association

Empowering Families Across California 

Serving West Contra Costa  -  Alameda Counties   Click here for Babelfish Translator

Read and sign our petition in support of Regional Center case managers' ability to provide quality care for consumers  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/amendtheact

              
                    Our Mission

CalNAA is a chapter of The National Autism Association. We serve the communities of the West Contra Costa - West Alameda Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are committed to connecting individuals with autism spectrum disorders, their families, and the professionals who care for them, with each other for sharing of support, advocacy, resources, and information on local policies and state and federal legislation.

To learn more about the National Autism Association, visit  www.nationalautismassociation.org 
                             

                                           About Us

History

We are a group of parents who are dedicated not only to our own children who are on the autism spectrum, but to other families dealing with similar issues in this community. This community has been underrepresented in the past in terms of developmental disabilities, and this is something we will be striving to change. With the upsurge in autism, and the current fiscal crisis, it became apparent to all of us that we needed to take a more active role in our community and this state to advocate for our children. We began our efforts in April of 2003, and have been meeting monthly every since. It is our hope that our chapter will serve as an outreach to all of the Bay Area. In addition, we are the first NAA chapter here in California and as such will serve an active role as a liaison to all other subsequent chapters.


Activism

During June of 2003 we organized a meeting with Senator Barbara Boxer's aide, Jennifer Tang, on the revision of IDEA. This meeting went so well that we had seven parents there and five children. We wrote an agenda for the meeting and outlined our concerns for IDEA. Ms. Tang took copious notes and also helped me secure our meeting with Senator Feinstein's office. (We had been trying to get a meeting with her for almost a month with no luck). Our meeting was one hour in length.
We met with Michele Senders, an aide for Senator Feinstein, in July of 2003. That meeting was even more successful. We had thirteen parents, two children, and two lawyers. We were given two hours and as more and more people arrived the aides in the office had to keep going out to get more chairs.

April 23rd 2005, CALNAA discovered that Children’s Hospital Oakland was planning on discontinuing coverage by 30 insurance carriers at the Child Development Center as of June 1st 2005. This gave CALNAA a little over a month to work on this very important issue.

CALNAA created an on-line petition, template letters for families to send to their insurance carriers, and posted the contact information for where the letters were to be sent.  CALNAA also contacted all state, local and federal officials and requested their help. It was invaluable.

In addition, we were able to make this item front page news in the West County Times; and the SF Chronicle and Oakland Tribune ran front page stories in their business section.
(ContraCostaTimes.com | 05/18/2005 | Children's Hospital cuts plans,)
(Children's insurers challenged / Oakland hospital warns parents they may have)

As a result of all our hard work and the efforts of many, all the contracts were renegotiated. We are very proud of this accomplishment, and wish to thank all those involved. Because of everyone’s hard work, care was never discontinued and the quality of care that families receive never diminished.