Danny Combs

And it's come up that no other state that we've been able to find, and we talked to a whole bunch of states, and the contractor we've hired to help us write has also researched, has ever done this.

And what I mean by the needs assessment is we don't have any real information of how many folks, for example, in the state have autism.

We don't really know.

We have general studies that the CDC does or the World Health Organization does.

It's taken from a handful of states from one specific age demographic, and then we paint broad brushes.

Well, how do you put in place a solid strategy and program infrastructure if you don't really know who you're trying to serve at that point?

So it's really trying to begin with the end in mind.

And to your point about those legislators, again, they mean really well, but they're not really those roadblocks that can stand in the way, or they don't really understand what

the ideas that they have, how they're going to serve the community when they don't have all the actual data at the same time too.

Oh, absolutely.

I find that they want to learn, like they're hungry, but even the way that they can go about it is rather limited.

That being said, I've worked with state level

Things I've done at the federal level was getting to work with the Neurodiverse Air Force, where we were able to change the National Defense Authorization Act for neurodivergent folks going into the Air and Space Force.

I was really, really very happy to be part of that team that got to work on that.

And I was not the lead on that.

I was fortunate to work with some incredible individuals.

I just got to be part of that team.

I'd be really curious to see what it'd be like to work with the more federal level representatives for sure.

Yeah.

I think to your point, the communication and the way that we articulate the need, the strengths, the assets of community, we need to unify that.