As Rotarians, we recognize December as Disease Prevention and Treatment month. This Area of Focus includes Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

In 2023, the Rotary Club of Denton launched a global grant to create a center for children with autism in Paraiso, Costa Rica. Within this grant, thirteen scholarships to train in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) was offered to Special Education teachers and medical professionals who work with children struggling with behavior disorders.

Five clubs in District 5790 pledged their DDF for this project. Members from these clubs traveled to Costa Rica in August to refurbish buildings at the Paraiso Autism Center, formerly used as a drug rehabilitation center. The grant allowed Rotarians to create a sensory therapy room, refurbish a kitchen and provide large screen TVs, and other media to support autism training programs for the parents of the sixty children who attend the Center.

In Costa Rica, Special Education elementary school teachers are trained in specific therapies such as Language, Physical and Occupational. Behavioral therapy is not taught to students preparing to enter the teaching field. This presents challenges to teaching as well as managing children with autism, ADHD, and other behavioral disorders.

During this grant, Denton Rotary partnered with the Costa Rica Ministry of Education (MEP) to offer scholarships for a 12-month Applied Behavior Analysis Certification online course in Spanish. When this group graduates in August 2025, they will be the first educators to receive ABA certification in the country.

Regrettably, we learned there were many more teachers applying for the scholarships than we had global grant funding for. It was hard for our Scholarship Committee to turn away 20+ highly qualified teachers.

Our goal, then, became how Rotary could offer training to all educators who wanted it?

We knew about a global grant called a VTT (Vocational Training Team). A VTT grant covers the costs of bringing professionals into a country to train in group settings. Denton Rotary is now preparing to apply for a VTT.

The Rotary Club of San Pedro-Curridabat in San Jose is the Host club. Our partners at MEP are helping by approving forty teachers in three regions to receive paid time off during the school year to attend the workshops. Teachers will attend four, 3-day workshops over 12 months, led by ABA professionals from the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A&M University. Our venue hosts for the workshops are CATIE University, in Turrialba, a longtime partner of Rotary District 5790 and the University of Costa Rica (UCR) in San Jose.

The opportunity to partner with UCR is unique. Professors in the Department of Behavioral Science will acquire ABA teaching tools, while their graduate students will gain ABA knowledge they use as soon as they start their careers.

If you or your club has interest in supporting this VTT global grant you can find more details on the Matching Grants website (Search for G-3459) or contact Karen McDaniels at Karen804M@gmail.com.