Dreaming About a Farm
A bucolic setting could be a lifeline for autistic adults.

The Daranys: Tibor, Brita and daughter Vanessa.

Twenty-seven years ago, Brita and Tibor Darany got the news that would change their family's life forever: Their daughter, Vanessa, then three, was diagnosed with profound autism. The pretty little girl, an only child, would not speak or respond to them.

While the family found vital services to help Vanessa learn to communicate and live up to her potential as a child, the situation changed dramatically when she reached her 21st birthday and, as an adult, was no longer eligible for the programs and support that are a lifeline for the thousands living with autism.

“People don't realize that even children with autism grow up,” said Brita Darany, who lives in Greenwich. “They still need the things they had before turning 21 or they will slowly lose their skills. I realized that by helping her, I could help so many other people.”

To that end, Darany gave up her full-time interior decorating work and founded Friends of Autistic People (FAP), a parents' support group dedicated to raising awareness of the need for services and supported living arrangements for autistic adults. Now seven years old, FAP offers support meetings and lectures on critical breakthroughs in research, lobbies state legislators for change and raises funds for innovative programming, including its dream of a Fairfield County farm on which people with autism could live and learn life skills in a bucolic setting.

The need is real. When Vanessa, who now lives in a Trumbull group home, was younger, about 1 in 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number has jumped to 1 in 166 children in 2004.

The 1974 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees all children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate public education. But that doesn't apply to grown children with autism: “More and more children who are diagnosed are getting older,” Darany says, “and their parents are panicking because there is nothing out there.”

FAP focuses on changes at the state level because that's where laws that govern real estate and other issues affecting people with autism are created. They hope to extend the IDEA concept to grown children and foster living situations that specifically target the needs of those with autism, rather than group them with people who have other developmental and mental disabilities. Several state legislators and Connecticut congressmen and women have shown strong interest in her efforts. Congressman Christopher Shays joined other legislators in earmarking some of the U.S. defense budget to help military personnel receive medical benefits for their family members with autism. Senator Joseph Lieberman, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Senator William Nickerson were honorary chairs for FAP's October benefit at Temple Sholom in Greenwich. Stephanie Seymour Brant, supermodel and wife of Greenwich Polo Club owner Peter Brant, was the honorary committee chair for the evening, which featured a concert by world-renowned pianist André Watts.

All proceeds will benefit FAP initiatives, including plans to secure land for the proposed farm, which would be based on successful Somerset Farm in England and Bittersweet Farm in Ohio. People with autism would attend speech and music therapy and other proven skill-building programs taught by professionals.

“People working at the mini-village would really care to be there,” Darany says. “They would understand the picture – the body language – of autism. And for the people who live there life would be more predictable, more routine, which they tend to like. It will be like real life, but safer and calmer.”

Friends of Autistic People Greenwich, CT 203.661.8510 www.autisticadults.com