Children and adults in North east Ohio affected with autism will soon have access to an exciting new partnership—the Rainbow-Monarch Center for Autism at Bellefaire JCB in Shaker Heights. The center is a partnership between UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital—one of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals— and Bellefaire JCB, an organization that provides a variety of children and family social services.

Using a combination of research, clinical assessment, intervention and community outreach, the Rainbow- Monarch Center for Autism will help to improve the lives of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, their families and the community that cares for them. It will bring together world-class pediatric neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral pediatricians, language specialists, occupational and physical therapists, educational specialists, social workers and other pediatric subspecialists to create a comprehensive life-course plan for the care of children and adults with autism.

“Families with children affected by autism spectrum disorders are often at a loss to find all the services that are available to them locally and regionally,” says Kathleen Sanniti, MBA, RN, director of Ambulatory Care Services at UH Rainbow and UH MacDonald Women’s Hospital. “Our goal is to bring information together in one central repository, so families can navigate the extensive autism resources that are available to them from numerous community agencies.”

The Rainbow-Monarch Center for Autism will work with local autism organizations to identify gaps in autism services throughout Northeast Ohio and work with those organizations to develop new programs and services to address the needs of the autism community. Programs will include developing individualized educational plans for patients at the Monarch School on the Bellefaire campus as well as at regional public and private schools, providing family-centered relationship-based care to address socialization challenges and offering adult care to assist with either independent or residential living, with an emphasis on the challenges that affect employment and overall quality of life.