Iva Klarić, a coordinator of “Plavi cvijet” association, understands the crucial role that associations play in supporting individuals on the autism spectrum. Whether it’s raising awareness or fostering collaboration, educating, and providing support, associations make a tangible impact.
As a continuation of episode 1, Iva now shares the noteworthy initiatives of “Plavi cvijet” association. From making accessible dental care for children with autism in her community, to raising awareness in primary schools by rewarding children for creating a comic book featuring a protagonist with a learning disability.
Missed episode 1? Watch it here.
Episode Transcript
Iva: …was to give both teachers and children first this topic of autism to talk about, and then kind of for them to together to see that having difficulties in some kind of area doesn’t mean that you can’t thrive in the other, in something else. This is why we kind of, we wanted to involve children just for them to think about this for us very important topic.
Klara: Amazing. And then as an incentive, you rewarded the city, sorry, not city, the class with amazing stories with pizza for the whole class.
Iva: Yes, we had kind of, we had a lot of classes were participating and at one point we had to decide which one was the best, although it was very hard because all of them were great. And we decided to reward them with a pizza for the last day of school. We kind of took pictures with them and it was something, you know, to, it’s always when you have a reward, it’s always they participate more.
Klara: Yes, of course. And what child doesn’t like pizza, which is also a positive connection with autism. They will be much more empathetic and understanding and supporting individuals when they grow up.
Iva: That’s true. That’s true. My son was in kindergarten with a neurotypical group. And when we were leaving, one of the things that I said, I really think this is really important because I see my daughter growing up. I said that, I think that being in this group was really good for Shimon, but also good for all of the other children in the group because they kind of grew in diversity.
It was really funny that after a while they kind of didn’t hear, as I said, Šimun kind of sometimes gets loud with his voices. And you could see that at one point they didn’t even, you know, care about it. He go, he starts, you know, doing things that he does and they were kind of accepting it as normal for him. And that was great that after a while they accepted him as he is.
And that’s great with children, because if you show them that it’s okay to be different at the beginning, they might, you know, see this as different. Then after a while they just accept it. And hopefully if we go in schools regularly, the more and more children will accept this as something that is going on in our society and it’s normal.
Klara: As I said in the intro, your association Plavi cvijet is on a mission to improve the quality of life for people on the autism spectrum. What should we be aware of that is the area that really needs improvement?
Iva: One of the reasons why we kind of founded this association is because there are a lot of associations for children with different difficulties, but not specific for autism. And autism is very, very specific in terms of needs, of their needs.
And this is why we kind of started from the beginning and still feel that there are a lot of space for improvement in both in everyday life, in inclusion, in everyday activities, and understanding from our local communities. What I always said is I think it’s most important for parents and for families to kind of talk about that there are different difficulties, not just autism, and that kind of in every day, in every classes, you know, you can find at least one child with some kind of difficulty, learning difficulty.
And children just, we just need to talk with our children because soon they’re going to be grownups who are going to be leaders, who are going to be decision makers, who can really change things for children with different difficulties and then for children with autism.
I still find, and I see that a lot of our parents still find everyday life very, very challenging for us just by, you know, having autism and then by kind of having it in the community that still does not really respond, not always in a good way, but there are really good changes. And I always say that when I, for one kind of situation that doesn’t feel right for me, when we feel not accepted, let’s say, I find at least one good thing about our local community.
Like what I wanted to say is it kind of still happens that a lot of people know us and they kind of see, they respond in a good way. Like they see Šimun maybe is not in a good mood, but they still kind of laugh at him or give him a smile or pat on his back. This is something, you know, that keeps us going. Although there are still situations completely different than the one I just explained.
So I think if the acceptance in the community, you know, gets bigger, then everything will be easier for us. But what I always say, maybe I learned it with my, having my son, but I always kind of give children benefit of a doubt. What is specific about autism that you can’t see autism on our children faces.
You can see it after a while on their behaviour. So what I just would really love for people to do is when you see a child behaving, maybe not typically, give him a benefit of a doubt. Don’t, you know, judge him at the beginning, you know, think maybe, okay, maybe he’s going for, through something difficult. Maybe he has some kind of difficulties. Maybe he has autism, maybe he doesn’t, but you know, just, you know, first, first believe in a good thing.
Klara: And then, then if, if, if it has to be now, let’s just get back a bit on the activities association Plavi cvijet does. So what, what are some of your highlights in the last year or so?
Iva: Okay. So we, throughout the, the four years that we have been here locally in our town, we try to do different activities. Basically we are, our association is formed from of families that have children with autism and kind of, we decide what we’re going to do next by listening to our members.
And the reason for the forming of associations that in our local community, in kindergarten, our children didn’t have adequate support. They didn’t have assistance. And we thought it was really important for them to have assistance so that they can get into integrated into the, into the kindergarten groups.
And this is the first thing that we did. And we thank our local, our city for kind of backing us up on this. And let’s say for the last, I think three years, it’s kind of normal for children with autism or just autism with different difficulties to now have assistance in kindergarten.
And we have to say that even my own experience with my son, that it got really, really easier once they kind of assimilated this group by giving him assistance to him and he really had fun there. So this was the first thing that we did. And then we kind of try to listen to our members.
So mostly what we do is we go to our local communities. We go to our, we’re mostly focused on our schools or we do different kinds of projects to educate both teachers, assistants, to educate them about the specific needs of children with autism. And what else we do, we, our children have to have therapies a lot and they cost a lot of money.
So most of our children, let’s say my son, now that he’s in school, we kind of down it back, down it, lower it for a bit, but he was going to therapies five times a week at least. And it really costs a lot of money and for all other parents to go to a different kind of therapies. So we decided that we should try to give those therapies through associations, which is something that we do through different projects.
And we also have a really good working connection with our local hospital, which is really important also because our children are unfortunately at hospital a lot. So what we did last year was kind of improving dental care for our children, because most of our children can’t get normal dental care without undergoing anaesthesia. And this has to be done in a hospital, not at a dentist office.
And up until this year, it could only be done in Zagreb and in Osijek. Now it can be done also in Slavonski Brod, which is a really good improvement because I once had to go with my son to Osijek and we had to wait for a few months with a hurting tooth. And when it comes to children with different sensory issues who react to different sensory input like pain differently, it kind of makes the challenging life that we already have even more challenging.
So other than this dental care, we also have a really good bond, let’s say, with our local pediatry. And they really respond to almost all of our requests. Like we have separated appointments with our local neurologist and our children can get easier appointment.
We can get it in the afternoon when there is not a lot of noise and things like that. So we really try to, you know, as I said, to hear our parents and to hear our children to kind of listen to their needs and then try to make their life, their everyday life as easier as it can be.
Klara: Yes, that’s amazing. And I believe this is an amazing conclusion to the episode. So I would just like to maybe highlight the key points of this episode. And that is that you as a parent need to have a high amount of self-awareness and that we as a society need to have high amounts of empathy and willingness to learn more.
And of course, that nothing happens without many stakeholders included from parents, associations, teachers and schools to cities. And you mentioned also hospital.
Iva: Yes.
Klara: Iva, thank you so much for joining us.
Iva: Thank you, Klara, for having me.
Klara: Thank you to the Erasmus + programme of the European Union for funding this project. All opinions are our own. And of course, thank you, dear listener, for joining us and connect with us on social media, where we will update you on the newest releases of the podcast or simply subscribe or follow us on your favourite listening platform. Until the next time.