Autism therapy center expands into larger, more accessible space for clients

PETOSKEY — A local treatment center for individuals with autism spectrum disorder recently moved into a new and larger space that is more accessible for their clients and offers more space for treatment.

North Arrow ABA Autism Services focuses on applied behavior analysis, a treatment that aims to improve the social and communication skills of children with autism and teach them and their families how to build on those skills throughout their life.

North Arrow serves clients as young as two up to clients in their early 20s, all with personalized treatment plans.

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Previously, the center was at 322 Bay St. in downtown Petoskey. Families of clients were struggling to find parking, especially during the busy summer months, and often had to walk some distance to get into the building.

“We wanted a space that would allow us to gain more clients and also be more accessible for families who are dropping off their child,” said Macrina Cipa, director of client services. “It was just becoming a barrier at the downtown location.”

The size of the downtown location was another barrier. The center’s new location at 910 Spring St. is a larger space, with an additional bathroom, offices for behavior technicians, a kitchenette, storage and a view of the bay.

When North Arrow came to Petoskey over a year ago, it started out treating clients in their homes. Once they built up a client base, they opened the downtown center in late spring of last year and now offer treatment in the center or in the home.

“Now we're getting bigger and so we have a lot of opportunities for gross motor play here. At this large center we also just (from) a technician standpoint, we have some office spaces for technicians to do their note writing and also just break times for them,” Petoskey Clinical Director Emma Mitchell said.

“For clients, there's just a lot of space for them to either work one-on-one with their technician but then also lots of space for social opportunities with the other kids here.”

The space has a large central room with five cubicles for one-on-one work. The open space is full of toys and room for kids to run. Near two windows is a space for kids to gather for group activities or stories.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 36 children have been identified with autism. When it comes to diagnosis and treatment, kids must be medically diagnosed in order to be referred to a treatment center.

With a shortage of primary care providers in Northern Michigan, getting a child diagnosed with autism and into treatment can be a challenge. North Arrow was founded more than two years ago with the goal of providing underserved areas with ABA services. The company now has locations in Traverse City, Petoskey, Cheboygan, Grayling and Cadillac and works to serve the surrounding areas.

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“From our experience and just what we're seeing as far as intakes coming through, we do have a lot of clients that are in need of services right now in the area and surrounding areas as well,” Mitchell said.

ABA therapy works with clients for as long as it takes to reach goals set by the parents and technicians. According to Mitchell, this can be anywhere from less than a year to five years.

“The hope is that by focusing on these earlier years that we help them develop a lot of these skills that will generalize to other people, other locations, other settings,” Mitchell said. “And it maintains too, that's a large part of what we work on, making sure that it's maintaining across all of these environments so that the child is successful in any setting that they go into.”

— Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Autism therapy center in Petoskey expands into larger space