Check out this story and video from the Green Hope-Cary basketball game. The team manager hit a three-pointer. But that's not the whole story.

The TEACCH program at UNC-Chapel Hill has been restructured a bit, the latest move in a series of changes to the renowned autism program.

TEACCH, the Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-Handicapped Children program, has been moved from the university's medical school dean's office to a new home within the Area Health Education Centers, or AHEC.

While AHEC is also under the umbrella of the medical school, the change will bring a different oversight structure to the program, which has been embattled of late.

Recent changes have bothered many of the program's devoted parents and other supporters, who feared it was being lost in an administrative shuffling.

And then a campus audit found some issues with the way an employee recognition program was being handled.

The university is still seeking a new director for the internationally known program.

A recent UNC-Chapel Hill audit raises some questions about how money has been handled at TEACCH, the renowned autism treatment program.

One section of the audit addresses what I wrote about in today's paper - an employee recognition program that was discontinued after auditors discovered it had not been properly approved and workers were getting cash payments improperly.

It wasn't huge money - $100 or $200 mostly - but collectively it totaled about $48,000 since 2002.

 But the audit raises other questions as well, including:

* TEACCH's use of a petty cash fund did not always follow state guidelines related to documentation, and has been discontinued.

* From 2006 to 2009, TEACCH reimbursed an employee about $14,000 for the cost of maintaining an off-site office. (TEACCH has regional autism centers across the state.) According to the audit, an unnamed TEACCH employee was reimbursed for 25 percent of monthly mortgage payment and utility costs. "This practice is inadvisable and did not show good stewardship of resources," the audit states.

* For many years, TEACCH deposited registration fees, Medicaid payments and other revenue into discretionary accounts. Problem - those funds were not 'discretionary' and should have been put elsewhere, the audit finds. 

"We found no evidence that the incorrectly depositd funds were misused," the audit states. 

TEACCH is an incredibly well-regarded program with a lot of fans - many of whom are the parents of autistic kids who have received treatment through the program.

As you may have read in these pages recently, some of those parents have concerns about recent changes to the program and what its future holds. You can read more about that here.

Happiness has gotten into "The Celebrity Apprentice" (NBC, 9 tonight)
and last week's episode had us talking about who was the was the worst offender on the let's-beat-up-on-Cyndi-Lauper bandwagon.

Let's look at the candidates:

Michael Johnson, the Olympian who thinks good leadership means not listening to anyone and going with your gut, even if you don't know what the heck you're talking about.

As long as you take responsibility for your foolishness, it seems, you're OK. And Donald Trump seemed to co-sign that definition.

Worse, when Lauper tried to explain why Johnson's failed advertorial didn't work, he rudely cut her off using the words of the next candidate...

The Capital Area Soccer League has honored Cameron Jarvis of Wake
Forest and more than 350 other young players with its Fall Hamilton
Sportsmanship Awards.

Jarvis, 9, is a fourth-grader at Pleasant Union Elementary School in Wake Forest. She plays for the CASL U10 Hearts.

"Sportsmanship means that you help other people. You have to treat the
coaches the way they treat you," Jarvis, the daughter of Steve and Beth
Jarvis, said cheerfully during a telephone interview Monday evening.

I read with both interest and sadness the article on the lack of available care for Joshua Stewart (“Mom camps out to get spot in mental ward for son,” Jan. 27). Unfortunately, Joshua’s story is not unique. Many people living with autism or other developmental disabilities currently are unable to receive the crisis care they need throughout the state.

While Joshua is now in a state psychiatric facility, why did his family have to wait eight days? A bed at Broughton provides a solution, but a psychiatric hospital is not the best option for a child with autism. How can we improve our system of care so that needed crisis and community support services are available to all children like Joshua?

First, let’s take a look at the numbers. Joshua has autism, a developmental disability that occurs in 1 of every 110 children born today, according to the CDC (December 2009). Not all children with autism are the same and not all will need crisis services, but there are more than 9,000 children with a primary diagnosis of autism in the N.C. public schools, and the number grows each year. At the Autism Society of North Carolina, calls for crisis services have increased dramatically, and there are few options available to solve these crises. Children with other developmental disabilities also need crisis services, but with the recent budget cuts there is clearly not enough money to meet these needs.

Studies have shown that with appropriate community and crisis supports, children with autism can avoid institutionalization. Also, taxpayers pay significantly less when children are able to remain in their communities. The comments by Dr. Michael Lancaster (state chief of Clinical Policy) about the desire for the state to be able to support Joshua through a local crisis center and community settings reflect that the state does understand these facts. The state initiated a program to provide crisis services for adults with developmental disabilities called START (Systemic Treatment Response Assessment Team). Unfortunately, there is not a comparable program for children.

North Carolina has excellent clinically intensive support programs for people with autism in specialized programs at the Murdoch Center in Butner. However, those programs lack the capacity to serve crisis needs. And with recent significant cuts to community services, local respite options such as respite care or group homes are limited.

Children like Joshua will continue to need crisis and support services. As a state, we must decide that providing appropriate options for care is a priority and make sure that there are funds available to provide these services.

Currently, there is no safety net for children with autism or other developmental disabilities like the START program. The state must commit to establishing community-based crisis services for children with autism and other developmental disabilities. In the meantime, one short-term option for situations like Joshua’s could be to increase the capacity for crisis services for children with autism at the Murdoch Center, which has proven to be a clinically effective model. For a child like Joshua, the Murdoch program is a much better option than a psychiatric facility.

Imagine if you took your child, grandchild or family member into the doctor and had to wait eight days before receiving help. How would you feel? I think we know the answer. That is why all North Carolinians must work together to fix our system of care and ensure that this does not happen again.

Scott Badesch
Raleigh

---------------------------------------------------------

This letter is in response to your online story “Mom camps out to get spot in the mental ward for son.” We need to start putting more money into North Carolina’s mental health system. People like Joshua and his mom need more help than the little they are getting. Waiting eight days for a bed in a mental health hospital is awful. This is a big problem the state needs to fix whatever the cost, so that people with disabilities can get the help they need when they need it.

Joshua’s mother can’t take care of him by herself; after all she’s not superwoman. She needs help.

Corey Pahel-Short
Chapel Hill

---------------

I read with sadness and horror about the treatment that 13-year old Joshua Stewart, an autistic boy, received from our mental health system. How can we allow such treatment for an autistic child in this day and time? Have we reverted to the 19th century with respect to the way we care for our disabled children? As a mother, my heart goes out to Ms. Mabry as she struggles to help her child.

To Gov. Bev Perdue and the N.C. General Assembly: Find a way to help Joshua and other children like him. As a caring society, we have a duty to assist the Joshua Stewarts in our state.

Fern Gunn Simeon
Durham

With all the debate over healthcare reform, it seems like there are some things we can do to help ourselves. Here are 10 healthful Twitter pages I found this week while doing a random search:

1. Fitness & Exercise, http://twitter.com/FitnessExercise

2. Autism Research, http://twitter.com/autism_research

3. Cancer, http://twitter.com/know_cancer

4. Pure Genesis, http://twitter.com/puregenesispure

5. Breast Cancer Care, http://twitter.com/BCCare

6. Quit Smoking 123, http://twitter.com/QuitSmoking123

7. Diabetes, http://twitter.com/diabetescure

8. Kids Doctor, http://twitter.com/TheKidsDoctor

9. H1N1, http://twitter.com/H1N1Info

10. Healthy Heart, http://twitter.com/healthy_heart

The story I wrote this week about one family's struggle to receive special education services they wanted for their autistic son received a lot of attention.

I'll compile some of that feedback for a different post soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a public statement from Orange County Schools given to the N&O today.

The school district is unable to comment on specific children because of federal and state confidentiality laws, but some of the language of the release is interesting. It mentions "the student's parents were adamant about the confidentiality of the student's information during the course of the case."

Further, it states, "As always, there are two sides to every story."

We'll be following the appeal as it proceeds (just read on the mother's blog that an appeal was filed today but have not confirmed that with the school's lawyers) and delving into other special education issues in the meantime.

The full release after the jump.

My, has Jenny McCarthy come up.

Remember when she was the goofy cute girl on MTV's "Singled Out?"

Now Jim Carrey's boo is a mom, author and autism anti-vaccination activist, who speaks passionately about her son's recovery from the disorder. Apparently Oprah has noticed.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the mogul has signed her to a mult-year overall deal with Harpo Productions to develop projects, including a
syndicated talk show that the actress/author would host.

The first collaboration is a blog by McCarthy on
Oprah.com, which launched on Friday. As you know, Oprah has already changed the lives of Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray, and countless others now making a whole lotta money.

Wonder if she's interested in TV bloggers...

Autism research at UNC-Chapel Hill got a boost today from the Autism Speaks advocacy organization, which committed $5 million to the school and several other centers for studies into genetic and environmental risk factors for autism.

The UNC-CH team will use state-of-the-art neuroimaging to expand its research into brain functions of children at high risk of developing autism.

The disorder affects about one in 150 children, impairing their learning development and ability to forge relationships with others.

At UNC-CH, researchers will use MRI imaging to explore behavioral changes at 6, 12 and 24 months of age. UNC-CH researchers have previously found that children with autism have brains that are from 5 percent to 10 percent larger at two years of age than children without autism. This enlargement of the brain starts around the end of a child's first year of life.

"The generous support from Autism Speaks allows us to undertake an unprecedented study of the genetic underpinnings of early behaviors as they become evident in infants and toddlers with autism and will allow us to study the genetic basis for early changes in brain volume and neural circuitry concurrent with the emergence of autistic behavior,” Dr. Joseph Piven, the UNC-CH study leader, said in a prepared statement. “It is our hope that this study will lead to a much deeper understanding of the pathophysiology underlying the development of autism, and will eventually lead to rational approaches to early intervention.”