Chinese Autism Awareness Center (CAAC), established on Nov 24, 2017, is a Federal- registered non-profit organization co-founded by Ms. Suyun Zhu, director of Suzhou Conscience Education Center in China and Ms. Helen, a Canadian Volunteer. Now the center has over fifty volunteers from all walks of life.
Given Chinese cultural background and new immigration status, Chinese autistic families lack sufficient understanding and resources of autism which may lead to mistreatment, delayed treatment, family conflict, and even divorce. CAAC is committed to providing autistic patients and their families with support services from Chinese Communities, including assistance in the treatment, rehabilitation and integration into society, promotion of physical and mental health and improvement of the quality of family life.
CAAC offers bi-directional service, helping Chinese autistic families understand all relevant Canadian policies, translating and explaining government benefits. CAAC aims at providing autistic patients and their families with full service in the future.
Services to autistic families include：
- Disseminating relevant knowledge;
- Explaining government policies and helping them apply for applicable benefits;
- Providing training to autistic family members
- Establishing family archives and carrying out monthly activities;
- Providing support for the specific cases;
- Supporting autistic families’ entrepreneurship.
Services to autistic patients include：
- Providing professional remedial training regularly;
- Giving autistic families with psychological counseling regularly;
- Organizing recreational activities regularly;
- Establishing Art and Sports Club for autistic children.
CAAC has successfully recruited about fifty volunteers of diverse background in the fields of psychology, finance, education, etc., since its establishment.
Our volunteers dedicate their love in a variety of ways, including collecting useful information online, collating documents at home, communicating with government officials, and planning activities. Up to now, CAAC has successfully held several family meetings, training and giving advice to autistic families in terms of music, nutrition, relevant government policies and application for child and family fundings. During Covid-19 Pandemic, from 2020 to 2022, CAAC did not organize in person meeting or activities, But CAAC still organized some online seminars, invited experienced experts to interact with members in need on the online platform.
We expect to build an assistance platform for autistic families where decompression, support, and guidance could be found. CAAC will provide a package service of discovering and treating, rehabilitation training and growth at different stages, education and integration into society, self-reliance and solving the endowment problem in the future.
In 2023, under the guidance of three enthusiastic parents, Helen Guan, Susan Lin and Sunny Lin, CAAC will continue to go forward. Welcome people of insight from all walks of life to join in CAAC！