Six years ago, Natasha Barber’s then six-year-old son who is living with autism spectrum disorder, Joshua, ran out onto a busy road. Like some other children on the spectrum, Joshua is nonverbal and tends to wander off. If it weren’t for a kind Samaritan, who Barber regrets she never got the chance to meet, getting Joshua to safety, he could have been seriously injured.
Barber started attending safety workshops and met others who had children facing what Joshua was. So, she decided to start a resource out of it.
“I started going to safety workshops the Autism Alliance held and realized that I wasn’t alone,” she said. “There were so many parents in the same boat as me and they were worried, they didn’t know where to go or what to do (to keep their kids safe).”
Her passion for Joshua’s safety and interest i n resources that help children with autism encouraged Barber, an Oxford resident, to create a resource for families who have a child like Joshua. She started her nonprofit, Autism Moms Know Safety (AMKS), as a blog and website to give advice to other parents of children with autism.
After meeting the mother of a child who had died by getting hit by a vehicle after wandering off, Barber decided to try and help as many kids as she could.
Today, AMKS provides safety kits for children on the spectrum that will help them communicate and know when they should stay away from an unsafe area. AMKS also has a website with product reviews, tips on how to keep children safe and more.
The safety kits hold a slew of tools, including stop signs, identifying wrist bands, emergency contact forms, personal identification cards that can fit in a wallet, product discounts, locks, “If I Need Help” emergency contact tools for nonverbal children and many AMKS tools.
“I started thinking of all the things I could put in one kit that could be mailed relatively economically… and things that I thought parents could use right away,” Barber said.
These kits are free of charge to anyone who needs one and can be requested at autismmomsknowsafety.com. To keep the cost free, Barber relies on her sponsors, such as Goodwill in Oxford and Centria Autism Services . Barber said these sponsors are becoming more essential to AMKS because of its constant growth.
As of June, Barber had sent out over 1,000 safety kits all over the world to places like India, Australia and England. Her Instagram page, where she posts her story and advice, @thenatashabarber, has over 13,000 followers.
Although AMKS is growing, Barber is determined to keep the kits free. She says she’ll give the kits to any family who has a child that could benefit from the tools and does not limit herself to only helping families with a child who has autism.
“It’s really for anyone who has a child who’s nonverbal, a child who has wandering tendencies who is unaware of their environment or unaware of danger,” she said. “You could really even use it for elders who have Alzheimer’s. The stuff I do is really just to prevent folks from wandering into unsafe areas or help them come back home if they do wander and can’t vocalize what has happened.”
Because, for Barber, it’s all about giving children and parents a way to stay safe.
“It’s a pretty big reality, and it’s a reality that doesn’t go away and can follow kids with autism into adulthood,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s about saving a child or saving a life.”