Danielle Terrell: From Kenya to Dubai: One Advocate's Journey to Empower the Autistic Community

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
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Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the
world one story at a time. TI. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour.
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Joining us today is Danielle Terrell. She's a passionate advocate
for individuals with autism and intellectual developmental disabilities, serving as
the US Healthcare Development Director at the International Board of
Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards ib CCEES. As an international
public speaker and contributing author, she draws on her extensive
experience supporting people ages two to eighty seven to drive
transformative change in the autism field. At IBCCEES, Danielle Leaves
initiatives to enhance healthcare training and certification, improving care and
inclusion for individuals with autism and other disabilities. Her bold
leadership raises critical awareness and empowers youngess and professionals in
her field. She brings a great story, a wealth of knowledge,
and we're happy to have her here. So before we
dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted
show right after a brief word from our sponsors. Thanks
for coming on.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure. So let's start out with what
you're currently doing.
Sure, so right now, I actually recently started a new position.
It's been about a month and I'm the Business Development
Director for Healthcare Services in the US with IBCCEES, which
is the international board for Credentialing and Continuing Education standards.
Can you expand on what you do?
So what that means is I work with hospitals, urgent cares,
dentist office, anything in the healthcare field and develop a partnership.
And with that partnership comes a curriculum that IBCCEES has developed.
It's an international independent credentialing organized that's been around for
a little over twenty years and we've worked with partners
from all around the world. So if you ever heard
of an autism certified center, or for example, Emirates Airline
just announced that they've become the first autism certified airline,
that's us. So our curriculum has been developed by our
board that's made up of a group of subject matter
experts and individuals with lived experiences like doctor Kerry Magro
and doctor Stephen Shore.
That's great. So what led you to doing this?
Yeah, so it's interesting because I decided to take a
couple of months off as I was transitioning and moving
back down to Florida, and through a connection on LinkedIn,
I was looking at ibccees. Well, interesting because it started
a couple of years ago in twenty nineteen, I decided
that I was going to start traveling to conferences just
to learn what else was out there to make me
a stronger service provider, and I love to travel. With that,
I decided I would go to a conference in a
city that I've never been.
That's interesting. So ware did it lead you?
So I went to Houston, Texas for the first time,
and the conference was actually organized by ibccees, so I've
been following the organization for a while, and then earlier
this year I had reached out to the CEO on
LinkedIn and really just kind of introduced myself. We got
into a conversation that led to another conversation that led
to lunch to.
A job offer.
And the healthcare part of it really fits in perfectly
because that's something that I took a special interest in
throughout my graduate studies and throughout my professional experience working
with individuals with disabilities. So there's a big gap in
healthcare services when it comes to training and supporting individuals
on the autism spectrum and individuals with sensory sensitivity. So
I know the need is there, and it's a passion
that something that I love and that I'm passionate about.
So excited to connect with healthcare pers professionals and talk
about this amazing work and why the training is so important.
Okay, so can you explain what it is that you do?
You work with people that have sensory issues, So what
are some of the steps that you take to help them?
I'm so would that be historically or in my current.
Role either one. Sure we can cover both.
Okay, Well, if we rewind a little bit, how I
got started really in this field. I truly believe that
the stars were always aligned. I just didn't quite know
that they existed.
Right.
There's a saying that true friends are like stars. We
don't always see them, but we know they're always there.
So it's kind of like that.
I think that this is something that I was truly
meant to do, and throughout time and some reflection, I
discovered a career that I absolutely loved.
That's great. So how did it start?
It started in New York, where I'm originally from, working
as a direct support professional for adults with intellectual and
developmental disabilities and co occurring mental health diagnoses. And I
really fell in with the individuals that I supported. Some
of the individuals survived you on New York State institutions
and actually shared some of their stories about what it
was like at Pilgrim State Hospital Willowbrook State School, and
that is where I found an interest in the history
of disability services and residential programs. I also met at
BCBA there, so I got into learning a little bit
more about the field of ABA, which is interesting because
I did take an ABA course in undergrad but never
connected the path of this is ABA and this is
how you can turn it into a career.
So from that.
First experience, I've always been someone that likes to learn
more and likes to discover what else can I do
to make myself a stronger professional. So I jumped around
a little bit and work as a service provider in
differing fields from community services to working in public schools,
residential settings. I worked in a group home. I was
also a manager at an assistant living facility. Again, every
experience I fell in love with I learned so much.
Well that's quite a good path. So what was your
next steps?
In twenty twenty one, I completed a master's degree in
developmental disabilities, So I started to pour a little bit
more of my time into academia while I was working
on my professional journey. So having that firsthand experience in
different areas of life also throughout the lifespan, working in
early intervention all the way to supporting individuals in their
seventies and eighties, and a lot of different healthcare experiences
happened throughout that time, especially with the COVID nineteen pandemic.
There is another individual that I supported who had eighty
three schedule doctor's appointments throughout one year.
Wow.
Yeah, So taking that professional experience and my interest in healthcare,
this role with ibcc ES really fell into place in
perfect timing.
Yeah, that sounds really good. So do you work with
people one on one or do you just mainly do
the scheduling so that others can do that job?
Sure? So right now I don't work one on one.
I don't have a face to face interaction with individuals
I work with. Sometimes it may be a CEO at
a hospital, or someone in a leadership role, or someone
within a healthcare organization that learned about us and they're
looking for more information. So we have initial calls to
talk about what they need is for their organization and
how we can develop a partnership with the curriculum that
we have and what their needs are. Sometimes people are
looking for an individual certification for themselves, or for example,
a hospital maybe looking to start with just their emergency
room and then maybe from there it grows to the
entire hospital becoming a certified autism center.
So how many outlets do you have across the country
that are currently in participation?
So I don't have the exact numbers that we have
a couple of partnerships in healthcare. We also work with
other organizations from entertainment, tourism, so hotels, parks and rec centers,
police departments. They've gone through the training.
Yeah.
So is the training on site or is it all
virtual training?
Yeah?
So I don't do the training myself. I just share
information about the program. But the training is virtual. It
goes through different modules, videos and PowerPoint slides. So depending
on what type of learning you are, sometimes it helps
to see that video presentation or sometimes just reading from
slides and taking notes. It's all self paced, so people
can pause and stop as they need to, and then
there's an assessment at the end.
So what are some of the challenges that you faced
or some of the people have faced with what you're
trying to do to help those that are autistic.
I feel like I can talk about a lot of
different things in the healthcare realm and just in other
topics in areas of life.
I mean with healthcare, the lack of training.
I've supported an individual she was in the ED, and
just I understand time is sensitive. There may be a
lot of patients and limited amount of nurses sometimes just
taking that extra step to ask questions. For example, the
individual that I'm thinking of, unfortunately she passed away a
few years ago, but I was able to support her
throughout the last few years of her life. She has
an intellectual disability and she's usually impaired. The nurse was like,
all right, honey, get up, open your eyes. Time to
use the bathroom. And it was like, okay, wait, let's
slow down. Actually she can't see, you know, we can
work with her and communicate with her, and just other
than assuming things, just take a little time to have
a conversation. There was another nurse, same patient, and she
was using the restroom in her bed when she was
perfectly capable of getting up and walking to the bathroom.
So sometimes it's taking those extra steps to learn about
who the patient is and treating them like a human
rather than oh, they have a disability and assume X,
Y and Z.
Have you done any work with anyone overseas.
I've also done some international work, and I've learned throughout
the years that if it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.
So I was just in Kenya recently and I was
speaking to a speech therapist, one of twelve in the
entire country. When she started her career, she didn't know
what was out there as far as career paths and options.
When she started getting into it, she knew that again,
medical staff were well trained and supporting individuals with disabilities,
and that a need was there, and she fell in
with She fell in love with her job. Parents moms
that have talked about what will happen to my childs
when I'm no longer there and using their voice to
be loud and doing things outside of the box to
create programs and residential programs for their adult children so
that they can create a community where they're supported throughout
the their own lifespan. So, yeah, a lot of different
challenges in different areas of life.
So you've said that you've worked in varied capacities. One
of them is you've mentioned airports, So do you have
people that actually train how to help those with sensory
issues at some of these airports around the world.
Yeah, so with IBCCS for airline training, so they also
go through the virtual training. So all of our virtual
trainings are going to be catered to the different industry.
So what we're presenting to a doctor is going to
be different to a flight attendant. So the in flight
attendants have gone through the training. The ground staff at
the airport have also gone through the training. In Dubai,
there is a lot of cre incredible work that's being
done to make the airport more inclusive, different resources, a lounge,
things like that. Other industries. If you've seen like the
sunflower symbol at airports, there's different access points that individuals
can go through, so it's not in overstimulating experiences. They
may not have to wait on those long security checkpoint lines,
different things like that.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard the Divine has one of the
top autistic airports in the world.
It's incredible. The Divie Airport's incredible.
I traveled to Dubai for the first time in twenty
twenty three. I presented at a conference and I was
just completely blown away. And even since then, there's there's
so much work that's being done in Dubai and they
really are dedicated to creating an inclusive community and really
being leaders in this movement.
Now, could you clarify a few things of what you do?
Do you act similar to a CIIT trainer who's involved
in teaching police, firefighters, and other personnel, how to recognize
and respond to someone experience in autism related meltdown, or
how to better understand and support autistic individuals, including identifying
behaviors like stemming and improving interactions with those situations. Is
this something that you do as well?
Kind of in a way.
So, for example, if we're talking about a healthcare setting,
there's a shorter training that the front desk staff might
go through, and that training may be more of a
what is autism? What is a sensory overload? Communication with parents, caregivers,
what communication styles may look like for different people, and
then for the training for the clinical staff may be
more specific to pain tolerance. Communication is definitely in there,
and it's important how someone might respond to anesthesia if
they're going through a medical procedure. So it's more like situational,
not like a hands on training where if someone has
a meltdown, we're definitely going to support and educate people
on different ways to maybe identifying antecedents and preventing a meltdown,
but not like a physical intervention or things like that.
It's a lot of communication. What is the experience like
for people who are interested in becoming a certified autism center.
One of the other qualifications to receive that certification is
an on site review. So we'll have someone from our
team come to your dental clinic or your hospital and
give a three sixty approach and analysis to what are
different things that we can either add to or remove
to the environment to make it a little more inclusive.
So we're not going to ask you to break down
any walls or any significant structural changes, but are there
little ways that we can make the experience from when
someone arrives in the parking lot to when they walk
through the front door to whatever room they're going to
receive their checkup medical procedure. How that experience can be
more inclusive?
Okay, that makes sense. Now, what kind of a company
would you be working with that would surprise me? It
might be one that you wouldn't think about, but then again,
here you are working with them.
Well, one example of a company that's become autism certified
would be the Doctor Phillips Performing Arts Center in Florida.
SeaWorld so amusement parks, Yeah, there's we actually. So last
year IBCCEES launched out an app. You can download it
from the apps, or it's the accessibility app, and you
can actually research different places and organizations that have already
gone through our training and have become a certified autism center.
So if you're just interested and curious to see what's
in your local community, or if you're planning for a vacation,
you can research different locations from around the world that
have gone through this certification process.
That's great. Now, is there any business that you haven't
worked with or is there any businesses that you think
you maybe need to work with?
I think that so.
As I mentioned, I've been with the organization for about
a month now, but IBCCS has been around for over
twenty years and they've really touched just about everything. But
there's definitely a need there, and there's so many more
partnerships and opportunities for people to be part of this.
There's definitely a lot that we need to do as
a community as humans. I mean, if we think about
we're sending people to outer space, but we still have
so many gaps in services that really just support individuals
so that they can live a meaningful life and be
happy and healthy. I was recently at the Disability Policy
Seminar in DC last month, and one of the self
advocates said, we deserve to thrive, not just survive, and
that's something that's really stuck with me for the last
couple of weeks.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a great statement. So tell
me where is your company based out of.
So we have two offices.
Our main office is in Jacksonville, Florida, and then our
second office is in Dubai, and then our team members
are all around the world. So we have a team
in Jacksonville, a team in Dubai, and we also have
a team in the Philippines. Part of our partnership is
we have team members that are there to support you.
So if there's a problem at a certain time, odds
are we have someone in the world that can help
and address the question or send additional resources at any.
Time of day. We'll respond in a reasonable lot of time.
It's a really great team and in the short time
that I've been there, it's really been a clear.
Sense of support.
In some of my previous experiences, especially when you're in
a position and there's a lot of red tape. Sometimes
it's hard and you're advocating for something that needs four
different levels of approval. When it needs sense, and if
we implement it now, it's not only going to benefit
the person in need, but so many other people with ibccees.
I'm in a position where my experience, my skills, and
my knowledge is really valued and supportive.
And it feels good.
Yeah, I mean, it always feels good when you're helping someone.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that seems to be what they're doing. So
when you have someone that's in a different part of
the country, and then of course people that are in
a different part of the world, are they from that
area so they can relate to the people that they
might be talking to, I would.
Say within the reasonable time zone.
So our schedules are scattered within the day or across
the world. So yeah, so at least that someone's able
to respond in a timely matter.
Yeah, And that's a great thing because people don't want
to wait too long. So, now, when you pick up
the phone, who do you expect to be on the
other end that you'll be speaking with? Who are the
ones that are inquiring about your services?
I think with at least in the US with recent
updates from the CDC to one in thirty one, we
may expect some people to reach out because there's more conversations.
I think that with a lot of changing.
Information in the news, there may be more and more
conversations about how we can support individuals with disabilities. Sometimes
it may be someone from HR they want to learn
about different ways that they can add trainings to their company,
whether it's to really better support their employees, if they're
looking to grow and expand, So it could be a
range of people.
Sometimes it's word of mouth.
We have ads that are distributed through meta and in Google,
so maybe it's a Google search or an ad that
someone saw again word of mouth. If someone has a
great experience with their doctor, odds are they're going to
tell their friends and tell their neighbors and it can
grow that way.
So do you find yourself working with hospitals and doctors
more than you would just people picking up the phone
and calling you?
Yes, for me specifically, because that is my focus. Other
members of my team will focus on other industries.
So is there any industry that you're leaving untouched or
you're just asking them to all join in and advocate.
Right, Not that I can think of.
I think that we have a need and a willingness
to knock on doors in all the different industries, and
I mean, if there's one out there that isn't being touched,
absolutely reach out.
We're on LinkedIn. I'm always on my LinkedIn account.
So yeah, So what do you see for yourself in
the next three to five years, What are your plans
for growth and where do you see yourself at in
the future.
Yeah, well, I definitely see myself here in Florida and
being part of this organization and watching the growth develop
across the country. Really focusing on having more of a
presence in the United States specifically, and then outside of
my full time work, I'm always keeping myself busy, so
more traveling and collaborating in other countries on projects. The
reason why I was in Kenya in March, that'sh the
beginning of April, was because I have a friend who
has a nonprofit organization and this was the sixth annual
Ride for Autism Africa. So when it started in twenty nineteen,
there was one cycle to road one thousand kilometers across
Kenya and the movement has grown. So I was like,
this is so cool. I want to go and ride
a bike and raise awareness. Like that sounds fun. I'd
ever been to Kenya before so I reached out to
my friend and I said, all right, I'm coming to
Kenya and she said, oh, you know, we're really not
going to do the ride this year. I'm kind of
behind have a lot going on. And shortly after she said, Okaze,
come and bring the world with you. So for the
end of last year Abania. This year, while I had
some time off, I worked on sharing this information with people,
seeing who wanted to come with me to Kenya. We
had a couple of people who were on board, but
ultimately they had a back out, so it was just me,
which made me a little nervous at first seeing that
this would have been my first time traveling out of
the country by myself. But I said, you know what,
it started with one cyclist, so I'll be that one
person that comes across the Atlantic and participates. So it
was an amazing experience. We built a therapy center and
a special school in Nakuru. We celebrated on World Autism
Day in Nakaru, and it was just amazing to be
surrounded by so many people to you know, celebrate resources
and the sharing of information and celebrating lives of individuals
with disabilities.
So you're doing all this and you're really advocating. Do
you see yourself becoming an ambassador for your company to
bring this word and the message that you're sharing around
the world.
Possibly.
I think that opportunity for growth definitely exist. If there's
ever a chance to travel, I'm more than likely going
to say, yes, That's what I've been doing for the
last few years, and a lot of times, initially I
don't know how it's going to work out and how
I'm going to plan around it, but fortunately it always does.
And I traveled to India last year and it was
actually my second time, and that was going to me
using experience and just all these really great stories that
I've had around the worlds meeting different communities and working
with colleagues and building friendships has been amazing. So I
truly hope that continues. Last year, actually, one of my
best friends interviewed with you last year, AJ Colin Langel.
Yeah, yeah, Autism and Barks.
So we actually started a podcast last year to address
the question what do I want to be when I
grow up? So we interview different people that are working
in the human service field, siblings advocates, just to share
their career journey and share their story to inspire others
to come in and fill all these gaps that we have,
because it truly is a rewarding career, and we like
to highlight that you can take your interest in things
that you love and intertwine it with this amazing community
build a beautiful career.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's great. So enclosing, what would
you like to tell the listeners that you think is
very important that they hear about what you're doing, that you.
Will continue to be inspired every day through this work.
The individual that I talked about earlier, she used to
sing the song you Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone.
It was her go to karaoke song, and that had
so much meaning for me because all the individuals that
I've had the privilege to support have been the light
to what I'm doing. And it's not always easy. There
are some really challenging days and sometimes especially if you're
in direct care, where you're like, how did I get here?
I don't have the training to do this, but you
do it and you push through. Don't be afraid to
ask questions and have conversations with people, because the stories
really do bring this work to life. And they should
be shared. So continue to share those stories because they'll
not only inspire you, but they'll inspire others. And it's
what will take us to the next level of support,
whether it's in the healthcare industry, direct care, education, and
so on. Share those stories, ask questions, and if you
have a loved one, whether you're a parent, a sibling,
also don't be afraid to share your story and lean
into your community as well.
Yeah, that's great information. Well, this has been great, great conversation,
great information. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
time out of your busy schedule to listen to our
show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as
we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone
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