The last day of the conference was as successful as the first three. We started a half hour late because of the press conference (this was my first time being interviewed for Ukrainian tv — I was nervous — hopefully what I said made sense!). They asked a lot of the same questions we might have at home, for example how early can autism be identified, what is the cause, can it be treated, etc. They asked me what was the topic for today, which was challenging behaviors. I thought it was interested that they asked if that was the same in the United States. I said yes, I had done this workshop many times in the U.S. Kelly and I approached challenging behaviors using positive behavioral supports and functional analysis. This audience responded the same as audiences at home but jumping straight to the function of the behavior without specifically describing the behavior — interesting how we are so similar. We did a Make It-Take It in the afternoon using Barbara Bloomfield’s trifold. I told the audience that everytime I do this workshop in the US, someone makes the same mistake of cutting the panels apart when they need to stay together. When we finished, everyone applaued that no one in this audience made that mistake — yea!  USNOF had purchased Boardmaker for Pahinents, so all materials were in Ukrainian. We are learning — this make it-take it went much better than our last attempt! We then gave out wonderful certificates at the end. There were 86 people who attended all four days! That means we probably had 100 on that first day! When we debriefed with Lubov, it occurs to me that folks are probably ready for more intermediate level training, and not introductory. They want more detailed information on specific strategies; Olga briefly highlighted approaches such as ABA, PECS, Floortime, etc.

During the morning break, a parent came up to me and asked it I remembered her from last year — she is the head of the parent organization from other region. I did. Last year, she had a one year old baby, asked lots of questions, and was very active and outspoken. At the time, I said to one of the students, she is going to be a leader. And here she is! They want help in a region 2 hours away. I took her to speak to Jason, and I believe she is going to meet with Karen during the next trip. Exciting.

This has been a very successful conference. I was so grateful to have “found” Galina and Olga. These are two wonderful people who contacted with the audience and made the conference experience so rich. I couldn’t have asked for a better conference. Dianne