TGIF! I can’t believe a week has passed. Let’s aim for 10k signatures before Monday morning, when lawmakers come back into the capitol.

This week has been a whirlwind of advocacy, meetings, and progress. Have you followed the activism of Autistic Dr. Henny? She is the Policy Analyst at the Doogri Institute, a by-the-people organization who took on our cause! 

Dr. Henny has spent the week meeting with key offices in the Texas Legislature to present a new legislative package focused on transparency, accountability, and protecting vulnerable children. She helped me launch a landing site for the initiative, and you can see all the legislative updates on the NonverbalRights.com  linktree page. 

This work is a direct continuation of our campaign to require audio and video recording in all special education classrooms and ABA centers. But the conversation has grown beyond any single diagnosis. The reality is that children with autism, ADHD, intellectual disabilities, communication disorders, and other developmental disabilities are often placed in environments where parents have little visibility and children may be unable to fully report what happened to them. Read Dr. Henny’s article, “Texas Is Being Asked a Simple Question: Who Protects Nonverbal Children?”

We have been planning and holding meetings with legislative staff, including members of the health and human services policy team, to build a bipartisan coalition around these reforms. Our message is simple: Texas should not permit any institution to control the only witnesses to abuse until the statute of limitations expires. Parents deserve transparency. Children deserve protection. And vulnerable students deserve safeguards regardless of whether they are diagnosed with autism, ADHD, or another disability.

We are building support across the aisle to ensure this legislative package gains the momentum it needs for the upcoming session. Lawmakers are listening, and your voices are making a difference. Bipartisan members running for Congress across the United States want to implement this on a federal level for us. 

Every signature, every share, and every conversation helps demonstrate that families across Texas and beyond-- in every state, parents are demanding accountability. We are sending a clear message that the safety of children must come before the interests of institutions.

Thank you for standing with me in this revolution.

Together, we are building a safer childhood for every child.  

--Amanda