Quick Take
Scotts Valley officials voiced support for a plan to allocate funds for autism certification training for local businesses and community organizations, joining a broader movement to make Santa Cruz County more welcoming to neurodivergent visitors and residents.
The Scotts Valley City Council voiced support Wednesday for making the city a more inclusive community for neurodivergent people by moving forward with a recommendation from staff to change how the city provides grants to local organizations. The move comes as the region’s nonprofit tourism marketing organization, Visit Santa Cruz County, is working to make the county an autism-friendly tourism destination.
In the past, Scotts Valley has provided small grants to community organizations that help serve the city. Since 2022, such organizations have been able to submit grant requests, which were reviewed by a panel of staff and community members, who then made recommendations to the city council on which proposals they thought the city should fund.
For the past three years, the city has aimed to give between four and eight organizations grants of between $5,000 and $15,000. Proposals are required to provide information on how a project or program relates to the city’s strategic plan. The city also emphasized an interest in filling funding gaps left by state or federal funding sources, as well as one-time costs or capital infrastructure projects.
This year, the council allocated $50,000 from the city’s budget for community grants. However, the city put the grant program on hold pending the outcome of Measure X, a ballot measure that increased Scotts Valley’s business license tax to bring more money into the city’s general fund, which voters approved in November.
The city’s economic development subcommittee recommended using $10,000 of this year’s funding to help businesses and organizations in Scotts Valley obtain autism certification from the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES).
The IBCCES offers an autism certification program to organizations involved in education, health care, public safety, travel and entertainment. Terence Concannon, CEO of Visit Santa Cruz County, said the certification program trains local businesses on how to properly handle neurodiverse people and cater to their needs by offering assistance in the event of a sensory overload, along with recognizing and empathizing with their differences.
Last February, Visit Santa Cruz County, a tourism agency that’s funded by a tax on local hotel rooms, obtained its certification from IBCCES and aims to make the county an autism-friendly travel destination by assisting neurodivergent visitors or residents when they are experiencing a challenge, along with offering them a quiet space away from heavy sensory input.
The bureau is in the middle of moving offices and is working to include some of these quiet spaces in its new location, which members of the public can use when needed.
When asked what makes a place autism-friendly, Concannon said, “It’s the people and their willingness to care for others and provide guidance and support to neurodivergent people. Travel should be fun, easy and accessible for all, and we are working to make that happen in all destinations within our amazing county.”
In Scotts Valley, setting aside dedicated funding to help train local businesses and organizations is much more than creating a safe travel destination for people with autism, City Manager Mali LaGoe said. It’s about creating a more inclusive and secure community for the people who work and live in Scotts Valley by educating and training city staff and local business leaders on how to cater to the needs of the neurodiverse, she said.
“I think that Scotts Valley could be a really autism-friendly travel destination, and if more of our businesses and service providers in the community get trained and certified, we can be on our path towards that,” she said.
The Scotts Valley Police Department is the only city department to have received the training, with additional city staff expressing interest in being trained through IBCCES. Certification costs depend on the number of employees and sectors; the starting cost is about $1,500 per certificate.
The city council didn’t vote Wednesday on a set amount of money to fund autism certification. Instead, councilmembers asked staff to gauge community interest in the idea, which staff will bring back to the council at a future date.
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