Beyond the Mission: In the boat of fear with autistic children
Kindle Edition
What happens when an institution promises to help autistic children reach their “fullest potential,” while everyday life inside tells a very different story?
In Beyond the Mission: In the Boat of Fear with Autistic Children, Dina Veksler recounts her experience working in a residential program for autistic children. She arrived fascinated by autism and eager to explore photography and other individualized ways of working with children. Instead, she entered a world where keeping children fed, clothed, safe, and quiet often seemed more important than helping them develop.
The book follows her encounters with children such as Jerek, Roberto, and Mary — children whose behavior was often explained by diagnosis or managed through established behavior programs. By watching them closely, listening to their unconventional ways of communicating, and experimenting with simple alternatives, Veksler repeatedly discovered abilities, preferences, and solutions that the existing system had overlooked.
But trying something different meant “rocking the boat.”
Gradually, she discovers a system shaped by fear: children afraid of staff, employees afraid of supervisors, and supervisors afraid of those above them. Against this background, the organization’s inspiring Mission Statement takes on an increasingly troubling meaning.
Part memoir, part observation, and part critique of institutional care, Beyond the Mission asks a simple question: What becomes possible when we stop seeing only a diagnosis or a behavior—and begin paying attention to the individual child?
In Beyond the Mission: In the Boat of Fear with Autistic Children, Dina Veksler recounts her experience working in a residential program for autistic children. She arrived fascinated by autism and eager to explore photography and other individualized ways of working with children. Instead, she entered a world where keeping children fed, clothed, safe, and quiet often seemed more important than helping them develop.
The book follows her encounters with children such as Jerek, Roberto, and Mary — children whose behavior was often explained by diagnosis or managed through established behavior programs. By watching them closely, listening to their unconventional ways of communicating, and experimenting with simple alternatives, Veksler repeatedly discovered abilities, preferences, and solutions that the existing system had overlooked.
But trying something different meant “rocking the boat.”
Gradually, she discovers a system shaped by fear: children afraid of staff, employees afraid of supervisors, and supervisors afraid of those above them. Against this background, the organization’s inspiring Mission Statement takes on an increasingly troubling meaning.
Part memoir, part observation, and part critique of institutional care, Beyond the Mission asks a simple question: What becomes possible when we stop seeing only a diagnosis or a behavior—and begin paying attention to the individual child?
