Partners
Partners
The Frist Center for Autism and Innovation is working with major local, national, and international partners. Here we provide information and links to our Employment Assessment and Referral partners, High School and College Pipeline partners, Major Area Employer partners, and Community partners. We also partner to support start-up ventures, these companies are included on this page but you can also learn about them here.
News From Our Partners
Employment Assessment and Referral Partners
According to their website, Jobs for Humanity “paves the way to a fairer future for all by connecting historically underrepresented talent to welcoming employers.” In addition to serving members of the neurodivergent workforce, the organization also facilitates job searches for people with blindness and low vision, refugees, Black leaders, single mothers, and the formerly incarcerated. Visit their website to share your story with potential employers, or email contact@jobsforhumanity.com to ask for more information on how you can become involved.
Specialisterne, a Danish company and social innovator, utilizes employees on the Autism Spectral Disorder (ASD), giving them a competitive advantage in business. Management and staff create a working environment adapted to the special needs of people with ASD to harness their talents. Today, out of more than 50 employees, approximately 75% are diagnosed on the autism spectrum. The Frist Center for Autism and Innovation is working with Specialisterne to develop new psychometrics specially designed to assess the unique capabilities of autistic individuals for appropriate job placement.
The Precisionists, Inc. (TPI) is a national company focused on creating 10,000 jobs for people with disabilities by the year 2025, by providing industry best practices for delivering administrative and technology services performed through teams which include individuals with disabilities. TPI has established a satellite office in Nashville to work with the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation as part of demonstrating the Nashville Model. Specifically, TPI will assist with job placement opportunities and workplace accommodations for individuals identified through the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation high school and college pipeline partners (see below). The Precisionists were also featured in an article by Lehigh Business, which can be viewed here. To learn more about job opportunities through TPI, complete this statement of interest form.
Rangam is a minority woman, disability-owned global workforce solutions company. Their philosophy of “empathy drives innovation” influences everything they do. They specialize in attracting and retaining global talent for Engineering, Scientific, Clinical, Healthcare, Administrative, Finance, IT, and other employment categories.
SourceAbled is Rangam’s hiring program for talent with disabilities and/or neurodivergence, including autism. The SourceAbled team prides itself in that it mirrors the talent population. Many of their own employees are autistic, neurodivergent, have a disability, or have a direct, personal connection to those communities. “We understand our talent community … because we are part of the community.”
For more information, please contact Dave Kearon at dave@rangam.com.
Mentra is a neurodivergent-friendly talent platform that intelligently matches neurodiverse individuals with employers that value their strengths. Mentra puts recruiters in front of candidates rather than forcing them to navigate through the challenging process of finding a job. How? Through humantistic AI and community-driven design.
PAIRIN is a social enterprise company whose mission is to make education relevant and hiring equitable. The company was founded on the belief that all people have amazing value, but most of us never realize our potential. People are too often put into ill-fitting boxes, told we can’t, won’t and will never be able to attain our dreams. They seek to change this.
Ernst & Young (EY) is a global professional services firm, offering accounting, consulting and more. In 2016, EY opened its first Neurodiversity Center of Excellence (CoE) in Philadelphia. Additional Centers have since been opened in Dallas, Chicago, San Jose and Nashville. EY is currently seeking full-time employees for opportunities in their Neurodiversity Centers of Excellence. For more information, contact April Smith at april.smith@ey.com.
In 2022, Goodwill served over 2.1 million individuals worldwide and helped more than 128,998 people train for careers in industries such as banking, IT and health care, to name a few, and get the supportive services they needed to be successful, such as English language training, additional education, and access to transportation and child care.
Goodwill works to enhance people’s dignity and quality of life by strengthening their communities, eliminating their barriers to opportunity, and helping them reach their full potential through learning and the power of work.
Workplace Programs Consultancy Partners
At AB, we’re fostering a culture of diverse perspectives and innovation to help advance our clients’ success. And we're doing it responsibly—both in how we act and how we invest on behalf of our clients.
Employers are experiencing unprecedented turnover, lack of engagement, and acute workforce retention challenges. Potentia delivers solutions to those challenges through STARS, our Neurodiversity training and recruitment program, and EMPOWER, our workforce engagement and retention program.
With turnover and job vacancies at nationwide highs, there’s never been a better time to connect with your workforce and bridge these gaps.
Potentia is that bridge.
iSocial is a nationally known powerhouse of university researchers, professional practitioners, and top business executives. All are committed to radically improving the lives of the neurodiverse. iSocial uses Zoom to deliver the most impactful social and IT career skills development workshops for people in this important and under-supported population. Madeline from IBM said, “iSocial is a life changer!” Effectiveness is based on over 8 years of university research, 1,000 subjects with 17 peer reviewed technical articles proving efficacy. Here is a link to a technical description of iSocial and the research that supports their services: https://youtu.be/8SXP8_MiWUs
The program includes comprehensive social and life skills development workshops. Registrations are on both a corporate and an individual basis. Six cohorts are teamed in Zoom workshop sessions. Workshops are tailored to cohorts matched by common goals, abilities, careers, and interests.
The iSocial and life skills workshops include the programs described below. These workshops are also available as a semester elective for college bound and college curious students. Attendees include people with basic needs as well as managers from IBM, Mercy Health, the US Air Force and more.
- Social Life Workshop is a foundational social skills program.
- Professional Communications and Leadership Skills Workshop develops higher level social and life skills. Here is a link to a description: https://www.isocl.net/about
- Information Technology career development workshops for the neurodiverse. Participants in these live, virtual programs benefit from a mainstream IT career development path designed for neurodiverse learners.
- Certification for IT careers through Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, HP, AWS and more.
- Courses are conducted exclusively for neurodiverse students and taught by technology professionals who are skilled at teaching the neurodiverse.
- Entry level as well as expert level courses available.
- This program is the result of iSocial teaming with Skillsoft/Global Knowledge, the world’s largest and most trusted IT education company.
For more information contact Bob Etzel: betzel@isocl.net
Link OT is the first ever neurodiversity consultancy service that utilizes evidence-based medical frameworks to get inside the psychology of what it means to think, process, interact, and self-regulate differently, resulting in neuro-inclusive recruitment, hiring, onboarding, integration and retention practices. What makes Link OT different from other neurodiversity consultancies:
- Team: Link OT utilize board certified Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists with decades of experience working with neurodistinct clients to provide employee and employer-facing services.
- “Nothing about us without us:” Link OT relies on the expertise of our neurodistinct senior advisors who tout deep corporate experience to help design and then implement their services.
- Consulting model: Link OT creates neuro-inclusive recruitment, hiring, integration, and retention practices from the inside out. This means they use the guidance and direction of employees and ERG’s with the messaging and support of senior leaders to create a metrics-based and impactful training focused on managers, who are instrumental to employee success at any organization.
Research & Development Partners
Floreo leverages the power of Virtual Reality to deliver a supplementary method of teaching social and communication skills for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our library of science-based lessons is fun and engaging for the learner, and also provides a supervising adult the opportunity to monitor and track the learner’s progress. Floreo is currently being used by schools, therapy practices, and parents.
The Uniquely Abled Project enables those with autism to start meaningful careers while filling a major need for employers. Our main program is the Uniquely Abled Academy model, with the vital role of providing skilled capable workers to fill critical vacancies in the manufacturing industry. Hosted by community colleges in partnership with autism experts and state and local service agencies, this education model provides an intensive semester of technical and professional training followed by job placement and ongoing support for both graduates and employers. To date the program has been free for students, and the placement rate for our over 100 graduates is close to 100%. A career as a CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) manufacturing machine operator is an excellent fit for those with level 1 autism who like working with their hands.
If you are interested in establishing a local Uniquely Abled Academy, the UAP will provide information, materials and organizational support. Please contact Ivan Rosenberg at IRosenberg@UniquelyAbledProject.org
TACT (Teaching the Autism Community Trades) is an innovative and groundbreaking non-profit teaching skilled trade and technical skills to neurodistinct autistic youth and adults who aim to mitigate the historical 90% unemployment rate for this community. As the most successful transition to employment workforce development program in Colorado, TACT is leading the way to a more inclusive future placing hundreds of grads into careers with fully integrated gainful employment.
High School & College Pipeline Partners
Benton Hall Academy is a Nashville school that specializes in educating high school, middle school, and lower school students that may struggle academically or socially in traditional schools. Approximately 30% of their students are on the autism spectrum. In addition to providing neuro-diverse students an education, the school also works to help them transition to college or a job after they graduate, adding the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation as another pathway for their students’ future.
The mission of Currey Ingram Academy is to provide an exemplary K-12 day school program that empowers students with learning differences to achieve their fullest potential. The school delivers on this mission by providing:
- small classes
- evidence-based instruction
- individualized learning plans for each student
- strong arts, athletics and extracurricular activities
- speech-language and academic occupational therapies
- character education and social coaching
- personalized college preparation and counseling
- parent, community and professional education opportunities
Major Employment Partners
With a 150-year history and a network of offices in over 50 countries on five continents, UBS has extensive experience managing the wealth of high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. This includes helping to protect global financial systems, meeting the regulatory guidelines and recommendations through a global, regional and structural approach. Their BCM program, which considers various levels and types of disruptions that might affect a building, business district, city or a wide-scale condition within a region or multiple regions, is constantly expanded as new information, techniques, and technologies become available. UBS is the first major Nashville employer to hire autistic individuals, the first of whom have joined the UBS Surveillance team.
Business analytics, test automation and complex software development projects are becoming increasingly important as digitization progresses. Precision and lateral thinking is required in IT departments. This is where auticon’s exceptional employees come in: they are all on the autism spectrum who have outstanding cognitive strengths.
auticon believes people with autism are an asset to any team. Special talents in logic, detail and pattern recognition are typical for many people with autism as well as enormous concentration and a pronounced interest in IT, physics, mathematics and technology. Autists can thus make a significant contribution to outstanding performance quality in the areas of IT and compliance.
Aspiritech is a world-class QA testing company that empowers individuals on the autism spectrum to fulfill their potential through meaningful employment combined with social opportunity. Brenda and Moshe Weitzberg founded Aspiritech in 2008 with the dream of finding suitable employment for their adult son Oran. Oran is a college educated, kind, capable person on the Autism spectrum, who had difficulties finding work that suited his talents. After researching a company in Denmark that employed adults doing software QA testing, Moshe and Brenda had their answer. From a kitchen table start-up, Aspiritech now has 120+ employees in two locations and is growing everyday.
Community Partners
Autism Tennessee exists to enrich the lives and experiences of individuals on the autism spectrum, their families, and their surrounding community through support, advocacy and education.
Autism Tennessee advocate for the needs of Autistic people, their families, and their networks. We amplify the experiences of multiply-marginalized Autistic people by embracing intersectionality and acknowledging the systemic ways oppression excludes many neurodivergent perspectives. They celebrate Autistic culture by enthusiastically centering Autistic communication, thinking, feeling, and ways of being. We recognize the Autistic neurotype as a natural variation within human neurodiversity. Find out more about Autism Tennessee at their website: https://autismtennessee.wildapricot.org/.
The Chattanooga Autism Center (CAC) has a “resource hub” to help people find services and resources in the region that are the most commonly asked options by autistic individuals, parents, educators, professionals, and others in the community. You can scan the categories on the webpage and click on the blue headings to find details and contact information. The resources are located in East TN, North Georgia, and beyond. This much information can be overwhelming for some, and many people are not sure where to start. The CAC can help provide some guidance and direction by calling the CAC at 423-531-6961 opt 0 or email them at info@chattanoogaautismcenter.org
Visit their resource hub at: https://www.chattanoogaautismcenter.org/regional-resources
The mission of the AAIN is to promote awareness, accessibility and inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and other intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families by building capacity throughout a community network of arts, education, athletic, and entertainment organizations.
AAIN are focused on true inclusion, which means creating meaningful experiences and opportunities to belong through participation in programs and representation within the organization. They exclusively recommend supports that are research-based rather than supports designed to allow for individuals to tolerate environments without allowing for meaningful participation.
For information about AAIN, please reach out to Blaire Donnelly-Mason at: blaire.donnelly-mason@vumc.org
Other Partners
AIF’s bold mission is to revolutionize the status quo for diagnosing, treating, and living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), neurodevelopmental disorders, mental health issues, and complex chronic conditions through a venture capital model that helps accelerate developing and delivering emerging technologies, translational science, and innovative services to empower individuals to reach their full potential.
Impruvon Health brought to you by Impruvon℠, a health technology company dedicated to creating solutions for IDD Residential, Senior Living, and Behavioral Health Teams to improve the efficiency of healthcare work flows, restore independence for residents and safeguard lives.
Repped in Tech is for the technology professionals who've felt like outsiders in their careers.
It's for all women — the non-binary, trans women, and women of color in tech — who've felt like they've needed to hide who they are in the industry. It's for the Black people in tech, the Brown people in tech, and all diverse technology professionals who've been in the shadows for far too long.
We're here to give you a platform: A space to make your voice heard, your vision seen, and your value felt.
As diverse technology professionals ourselves, we know what it's like to feel overlooked, underestimated, and put in a box. But we also know the power of taking up space — of amplifying our voices through the power of content creation.
We believe the tech world needs to hear your voice. Diversity in tech can unlock real change, real innovation, and real creativity.
And we're here to inspire yours. We're here to give you the tools, resources, and support to show the world what diverse minds can do.
Our firm follows a fiduciary standard and when we advise on financial decisions we take your best interests into account with an customized approach. We put your needs in first position to help maximize your potential of working towards your financial goals and aspirations. With our strategic advice, we can help you create an approach that is designed to address your specific goals and financial circumstances.
Amerigroup is focused on achieving health and wellness for the entire family. We listen, respect, and engage families to understand their culture, values, beliefs, and lifestyles so we can develop meaningful relationships. We engage and support members and their families to set goals based on what is important to them, building on their strengths and enhancing each person’s resiliency.
The Friendship Foundation supports parents and families who have children and young adults with special needs by providing a safe, accepting and inclusive environment where they can enjoy sports, art, music and many other social programs with their peers. Our friendly staff and helpful volunteers create a fun experience for all. It is our belief that every person is precious and capable of love, connection and friendship.
Programs are targeted to specific age groups while some encompass a broad gathering of all ages including parents.At each program, children with special needs are paired with student volunteers for an event full of fun peer interaction. The Friendship Foundation serves to augment our local educational systems and professional therapies by creating a natural setting for individuals with special needs to practice their learned skills amongst their peers.
The Neuroverse Initiative is a 501(c)3 non-profit working at the intersection of space science and neurodiversity. Mission Statement: At TNI, we are committed to advancing neuroinclusion in Space Science through Training, Research, and Advocacy. We believe that the Space Sciences should be accessible to all and that a diversity of minds will only accelerate our discovery and understanding of the Universe. TNI have three scopes of work:
Training: TNI is committed to training students, faculty, and all members of the Space Science community in neuroinclusive practices by providing education on neurodiversity, promoting understanding and acceptance. Through workshops, seminars, and resources, the initiative aims to foster a supportive and inclusive community for individuals with diverse neurological profiles.
Research: TNI aims to improve our understanding of the ND population and their experiences and impact in the Space Sciences through peer-reviewed research. TNI conduct studies, gather data, and publish findings that contribute to the body of knowledge surrounding neurodiversity in the field. This research serves to increase awareness, inform best practices, and promote inclusivity for individuals with diverse neurological profiles within the Space Science community.
Advocacy: TNI is dedicated to improving the world for the ND community within the Space Science field by conducting outreach programs, promoting education, and advocating for inclusivity. TNI's efforts focus on raising awareness, providing educational resources, and advocating for policies that support individuals with diverse neurological profiles, ultimately striving to create a more inclusive and supportive environment within the Space Science community.
