More resources are needed to support families with children who have autism for success later in life, a prominent island advocate says.

To mark Autism Awareness Month, Tomorrow’s Voices — Bermuda Autism Early Intervention Centre is hosting a number of events this month, including a workshop, charity fundraiser, and car rally and scavenger hunt. Centre staff will also welcome visitors for an open house this Friday.

The organisation, which celebrates ten years this October, has come a long way from its early days, co-founder Thea Furbert said.

“We were trying to figure out how we were going to stay open,” she described of the first years after opening with co-founder Tricia Simons.

“We would hit, I would say, September of every year, and we would have grey hairs about are we going to get enough funding to continue to last to the end of the year.”

What started with four clients, five staff members, and a single, in-house, one-on-one programme has expanded.

“We’ve grown in a way, in the ten years, that I didn’t think we would,” Ms Furbert said.

Now operating with ten staff members, the centre provides an annual summer camp, as well as a bi-weekly weekend social skills programme.

In-school and in-home consultations are also offered. The general public’s awareness of autism today is “so much larger”, Ms Furbert said.

“From years ago, children were just looked at as having disabilities.

“Now, I think people are just more open to trying to understand who their community is.”

This understanding includes community members opening their doors and allowing the centre’s children access to opportunities not provided in the past.

“For us, it’s about not hiding our children — making them part of the everyday Bermuda,” she said.

“Because this is their community, this is their home. And we want them to be integrated into that home. And those who are a part of it, or around it, understand and know who they are.”

While staff and programmes have expanded, the demand for more resources still exists.

“We have a waitlist,” Ms Furbert said. “We get calls every day from parents whose children have just got diagnosed with autism.”

Tomorrow’s Voices is currently the only centre in Bermuda that provides applied behaviour analysis for children with autism, Ms Furbert said.

“There’s just not enough,” she said of the current availability of services.

“Autism is not going away in Bermuda.

“Children are going to be diagnosed with autism. And it’s lifelong.

“With early intervention, these children have a better chance of accessing their classrooms. If they are not getting early intervention, and the hours that they need, then they are going to continue to need more support in their future.”

In the next ten years, Ms Furbert said she envisioned a future with more growth for the centre, including the expansion of the currently “very limited” services for clients over the age of 18.

“We can’t ignore them.”

Her motivation, Ms Furbert said, remained simple.

“I just want our children to be able to access their worlds,” she said.

“It never tires me.”

For a full list of events organised in April by the centre, visit www.tomorrowsvoices.bm.