Resnik: These shoes are made for walking, running and changing the world

I have had the privilege of delivering two commencement speeches at Arizona State University — one was at my graduation 41 years ago and the other this month when I challenged the fall graduating class from ASU’s College of Health Solutions to answer these questions:

• What do you want for your life — and for the people you care about most?

• What makes you happy and brings you joy?

•What gets you hopping out of bed every morning? What’s your rocket fuel?

On the predictably unpredictable journey of life, I’ve learned the answers may change because there’s more than one beginning — and one ending — to any story.

I thought I had figured it all out when I graduated as part of the Class of ’82 and shared plans for my future in the New York studio of the Today Show as one of Glamour Magazine’s Top 10 College Women. When co-anchor Jane Pauley asked where I saw myself in 10 years, I said that I wanted a family, to be a business executive and active politically. “So, you want to be a mother, CEO and junior senator from Arizona,” she shot back. “What makes you think you can have it all?”

My response to Pauley back then was a self-fulfilling prophecy because within 10 years I had met my husband while serving on then Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt’s reelection campaign, was an activist addressing prejudice and inequality, and had secured my first job at the New York Stock Exchange-listed Del E. Webb Corp., the granddaddy of senior housing development.
That was my story then, but my life took a different path following our son’s autism diagnosis more than 30 years ago when we were told institutionalization would be best — the prevailing solution for this confounding disorder impacting one in 2,500 U.S. children at the time.

We wrestled with the possibilities of supporting him at home for as long as possible while we explored options. I will never forget what I saw, smelled and felt in those institutions. We pledged to find a better approach but didn’t know where to go or what to do as we pursued answers for Matt’s profound autism. Information was scarce and the internet was just emerging. Few therapies were supported by data while others offered false hope to help Matt speak, sleep, eat or stop chewing leather off our living room couch and the backseat of my car.

We started to find answers in our greater Phoenix community of friends, families, physicians and professionals. With their help, I co-founded the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center — SARRC — in 1997 with big dreams and a bold mission: to advance discoveries and provide a lifetime of support for individuals with autism and their families. In 2012, I founded First Place AZ, SARRC’s sister charitable nonprofit, and a residential and community developer ensuring housing and community options for people with autism and other neurodiversities are as bountiful as they are for everyone else.

Together with leaders throughout this community, we have built greater Phoenix into a metropolis offering early identification, intervention and education; lifelong learning; training and employment; an inclusive, supportive community; and now more home options — all reasons why PBS NewsHour calls greater Phoenix “the most autism-friendly city in the world.”

Since Matt’s diagnosis, I’ve been on a veritable marathon, recognizing that you cannot build a community for one person and one person cannot build a community, which is why the First Place Global Leadership Institute is supported by tri-sector leadership collaborating on housing and community solutions through education, training, research and public policy — and learning from our flagship R&D property, First Place-Phoenix, an 81,000-square-foot, supportive apartment community designed for approximately 70 adults in the heart of the urban area.

Matt is now 32 years old. He lives in his own apartment at First Place-Phoenix and joins us at our family home most weekends. He works, volunteers, has supportive friends and neighbors and learns daily, as do we — his parents, family and First Place’s dedicated staff.

Arizona leaders are now combining community assets to create a nationally recognized ecosystem of housing, health care, jobs and education/training for providers, adults living with autism and intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (A/I/DD), and their families.

These efforts address an urgent need for the more than 100,000 autistic children in the U.S. transitioning to adulthood annually and more than 1.8 million Americans with A/I/DD living with caregivers over age 60 — all representing a slippery slope to displacement and even homelessness.

Adults with A/I/DD who are not engaged in the Arizona Long-Term Care System often lack access to quality health care. When they have health care challenges, they overutilize under-resourced health care programs, as well as emergency rooms for non-emergent and/or mental health needs. Through the development of educational opportunities, creation of integrated clinics and use of technology, overall costs of care can be reduced and access improved for patients, their families and healthcare professionals.

We are prepared to leverage Arizona assets and those developed by the First Place Global Leadership Institute focused on the education and training of adults with A/I/DD, their families and support providers. This includes expanding existing curricula developed and tested by First Place while collaborating with leading statewide medical and healthcare institutions.

This is our moment to stand together for and with the underrepresented, underserved and underestimated. When an individual receives that daunting diagnosis, we not only want them to have access to promising intervention therapies but also thrive with homes, healthcare, friends, jobs and that all-important supportive community. We want them to have hope—here in Arizona and beyond.

My advice for this generation of trailblazers lacing up for their marathon journeys: locate your North Star to direct and ground you; allow yourself to dream, adopting a vision for impact and a happy life filled with purpose; and build your supportive community to fortify you every step of the way.

Denise Resnik is a graduate of ASU, class of 1982.