In the News

Cleveland Jewish News, November 17, 2006

Mothers of invention achieve milestones
BY: SUSAN H. KAHN, Assistant Editor

Mia Buchwald Gelles, left, and Ilana Hoffer Skoff look over materials that will be presented at Milestones’ upcoming autism conference.

Ilana Hoffer Skoff and Mia Buchwald Gelles met by chance in 2000 in a speech therapist’s waiting room.

Each has a child on the autism spectrum and, they discovered, they were using the same approach "Applied Behavior Analysis" to teach their youngsters.

“Children with autism don’t learn by observation," says Gelles. “You have to teach even common behaviors, like how to greet someone and how to carry on a conversation, in a deliberate, step-by-step manner."

Everyday experiences "getting a haircut or going to the dentist" have to be thought out in advance, explains Skoff.

“Children with autism also don’t generalize well," Gelles adds, “They find it difficult to apply a skill they have learned in one context to a new situation."

As they struggled to teach their children, the two mothers began helping each other analyze problems and devise strategies. They read books, attended conferences, shared information, sought out resources, hired and trained tutors. All the while, they were gaining valuable expertise.

“When the kids were in school full-time we finally had the time to share this knowledge," says Skoff. “We asked ourselves, how can we make a difference?"

The answer was Milestones, an organization the women founded in 2003 whose main focus is to provide training locally for professionals working with children on the autism spectrum. Established with funding from the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and the Lader, Senkfor, and McBride Family Foundations, the Cleveland Heights nonprofit rents office space in Beth El - The Heights Synagogue.

For their efforts, Gelles and Skoff are among five individuals being honored by Individuals Devoted to Educational Advocacy (IDEA) at their annual Celebration of Champions dinner on Nov. 16.

Milestones’ founders brought more than their personal experience with autism to this endeavor. Gelles, the organization’s operations director, has over 16 years’ experience in nonprofit management, project planning and administration, and custom database design. The Cleveland Heights resident also works as program director at Environmental Health Watch.

Skoff, of Beachwood, is Milestones’ executive director. For the past 18 years she has worked in the development field in the areas of strategic planning, board development and funding strategies, with her specialty being grant writing. Neither woman draws a salary.

Since its inception, Milestones has presented four large conferences, featuring nationally known experts in the autism field and a large array of workshops offering continuing professional education.

“In our very first year, we drew 390 participants," says Skoff. “People came out of the woodwork; they came from all over the state."

At the request of the Cuyahoga County Special Education Service Center, Milestones also organized a week-long, hands-on training seminar for 200 public school teachers. For this course, they recruited a small “lab class" of children with various degrees of autism. After teachers were taught new techniques, they could literally go next door and practice them in a real-life environment.

Milestones also works collaboratively with other regional autism service providers such as The Monarch School and The Cleveland Clinic Lerner School.

Its founders say that one of Milestones’ most important missions is to provide information. They have fielded calls from child life workers at hospitals, directors of teen youth groups, school personnel and, most often, parents and relatives.

“We help parents think through how to begin meeting the challenges they are facing," says Skoff. “We connect people; we tell them where they can get help."

In the future, Gelles and Skoff hope that Milestones will be able to help parents obtain objective needs assessments for their children with autism. They also would like the organization to address social, recreational, vocational and housing needs for young adults with the disorder.

While the women have done the lion’s share of work in establishing and running Milestones, they are quick to recognize the contributions of their spouses. Rabbi Joshua Hoffer Skoff came up with the name Milestones, while Joe Buchwald Gelles, who owns a graphic design firm, created all the organization’s printed materials.

The other IDEA honorees include Robert Ross of Solon, principal of Cuyahoga East Vocational Education Consortium (CEVEC) for the past seven years; University Heights resident James Dunne, former director of the Eleanor Gerson School in Cleveland; and Scott Kendis, a 2004 graduate of Beachwood High School with learning disabilities resulting from a brain tumor. He successfully litigated against his local board of education allowing him to graduate with his class and continue to receive necessary educational services.