 Ableton On Air is sponsored by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community. Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support comes together. Media sponsors for Ableton On Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, US Press Corps, Domestic and International, Anchor FM, and Spotify. Partners with Ableton On Air include Yachad New York and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, and the Vermont Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Ableton On Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, and www.h.com. Ableton On Air is a member of the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter. Hello and welcome to this edition of Ableton On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements. I'm definitely able. I've always been your host Lauren Sotter, my wife is here today, Arlene. Hi Arlene. Okay. Before we get started on our fantastic edition today, let us thank our wonderful sponsors for Ableton On Air. Ableton On Air is a television program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of different labels, and also our podcast, which is able to speak up, can be also listened to on Spotify and Anchor FM. And we would like to thank Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, Muslim Media Corporation, and many others, including supporters such as Yahad of New York and New England, and the Vermont Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired. We would like to thank Washington County Mental Health today for this topic, which is the Imagination Station. We can go over that before we begin. The Imagination Station is a specific kind of sensory room known as a snoozzling room coined in the 1970s by two Dutch therapists. The Dutch hybrid word pronounced snoozzling or snoozzalin directly translates as sniffing and dozing. But in practice means something more like exploring and relaxing the Imagination Station is the only snoozzling room in Vermont. And there's only a handful in New England. The most important part of the snoozzling experience is not the equipment but the control children have over it or adults. Most treatment for kids on the autism spectrum involves helping them adjust to society's rules and expectations. But the snoozzling room in the snoozzling room kids get to create an environment tailored specifically to them. Let's introduce our guest Heather Slayton of Washington County Mental Health. What is your position for Washington County Mental Health and thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. So in this capacity I am the facilitator for the Imagination Station snoozzling room. And I've worked for the agency for 19 years and I have been facilitating the use of this room for the five years and two months that the room has been open. Okay what exactly well we said what snoozzling room is but the well space now has the snoozzling room. So what is the snoozzling room in this case and how does it work for participants in Washington County. So the snoozzling room is a room that was brought to us by the autism puzzle foundation of Vermont and we were approached by them and Randy Lamberti when they decided to retire their foundation and they wanted to leave a lasting gift for the community and for people with autism. So they came to us and said we wanted to build something that the community could access and that would last and we gladly accepted that the board and our executive director Mary Moten said yes we want to house this space and so they built with our maintenance department. So the autism society or that part of that organization does not exist anymore. Right so they held a massive fundraiser one last big bang and worked with our maintenance department and they built this amazing space and so now anybody with autism can whether they're a client of Washington County or not can now access this space where they can go in and relax or come in and get stimulated if that's what they need and enjoy the space and control what goes on around them. When you say therapy and stimulation what exactly does that mean for those that don't know like in terms of this case. Right so the room gives you what you need. You take away what you need from it and so you can stimulate whatever sense you need. There are lights, there are sounds, there are things to touch and just all kinds of things to explore. So was it like for example I'm just bringing it out there a carnival is a sensory space for kids and adults. So example they have games in carnivals such as whack-a-mole you know you're you taking the little thing and you're whacking the head you're right or they you know balloons that burst when you put a water gun or something like that similar although similar experience well not I wouldn't say carnival in a snoozzling space but is it. It can feel like one if you needed it too. So there are you can control the lights there are these amazing blocks that you can push or jump on if that's what you want to do that will change the lights in the entire room. There are bubble tubes that fish are in plastic fish that change the lights change the bubbles run through everything moves there are there's an aromatherapy machine it all changes. What exactly is an aromatherapy? So it's got essential oils in it and you can smother a spot on it that will make the air blow through changes the entire scent of the room there are vibrating cushions in the room we now have a brand new zero gravity chair that has vibrating massage and heat there are stereos there's a computer program that casts pictures or music on the wall like holograms. Well it's a it's got a projector that you can watch animals or a beach scene or snow or even somebody wants to be somebody wants to be on the moon you can be on the moon you can be in space you can put a picture of the moon yep oh cool or a ski mountain yeah whatever yep so many options anyone anything you want to ask like besides autism is it just for autism it's not it's it's a fully controllable space if you can find a way to get what you want out of it you can go in and do it um it's easily used by people with emotional disturbances or somebody with Alzheimer's if there is a sense that you need stimulated you can go in and do that okay um now how long did it take Washington County mental health or did it take you to actually turn because I heard that it was a off camera I was told that it was a storage space so it took a year two years oh it was it was quite a long project I can't actually remember the entire length of it from the time they approached us until it was finished but it did take quite a while we had uh there was a room where records were stored there was a room where I used to hold a job club we had a janitor's closet it was there were quite a few rooms that were removed to build this space definitely now the wall space has those things going on therapies and programs and do you want to explain a little bit about that sure well space is kind of like a hub for the agency you can go in there and find access to almost everything that the agency offers we have an amazing state licensed kitchen upstairs there is a gym in that building we have obviously imagination station um there is a food shelf for the consumers that we serve in there we have our jobs program in there jobs program and employment it's an employment program for youth we have counselors from a few different divisions that use offices there some other agencies use space to meet with clients there because it's just so central to washington county yeah we have a lot of different folks in there and our doula program is there as well a doula is what a doula is a pregnancy support program that we have yeah okay and art programs and yeah the learning network is there um yeah we've had them on the show no how does um the snooze and compare to other therapies for people watches it is 100 percent that person driven they choose everything that happens for them it's not necessarily a suggestion by somebody else if they want to spend the entire time enjoying the bubbles they can do that if they want to spend 100 percent of their time watching the there's one machine where the snow just flies around and the lights change inside that box they can do that if they just want to relax watching the stars above them on a vibrating pad they can do that it's 100 the experience they want it to be okay um anything you want to add to that take your time take your time is it free not free is there a sliding scale so it depends on the person who's using it there this this room is not actually a program of washington county it is a room and so it's under i'm confused there okay so it's under washington county so i'm not i'm i'm not debating here i'm just right it's under washington county so where can you alleviate that confusion with this i hope so so it lives in a washington county building it was donated to washington county it does not have any funding it is a room not a program it is run 100 on donations and so we do fundraising but in order to keep every element in that room in good working condition we do have to charge a small fee for use however if anybody needs to use that room but cannot afford it we find a way to make sure they can use the room we do fundraising to make sure that everybody can have access what is it like ten dollars it's ten bucks for an hour oh wow and if somebody cannot afford that ten dollars we make sure they can still use it okay okay so we do fundraising and having fun for ten dollars and that's the best carnival because remark doesn't have a amusement park right right so yeah and you know we tried to keep it as reasonable as possible we actually sell memberships to many school districts have memberships outside agencies have memberships and that's where a lot of the money comes from to help provide maintenance and so because of that we're able to give a lot of families that can't afford it no no is it just okay now is that a confusion is it adults thank you is it an adults and children or just children there is no age limit anybody that needs to use that room is the perfect age to use that room okay yeah now so it can be um what about um so any from like one and up or zero because or that or that preschool age and up can they use so anybody typically anybody with a diagnosis of autism right although anybody that's got an emotional disturbance or we like to say anybody with a need so if emotional disturbance can mean not like it could mean a lot of things crisis if someone's going in a mental health crisis anxiety right sample yes yep and we don't ask for proof we don't say bring us your diagnosis or prescription for it if you have a need you have a need okay yeah um now within the 19 years that you've been watched count is your experience in therapy or how how did you come across doing this so no it's not i started i'm sorry but oh no don't be i started 19 years ago doing direct support work with people with autism and um no just one-on-one direct work with in the community with people with autism direct support right yep and loved it and then i went into working in mental health um and doing employment support and i've done some case management i now do fundraising and i went into working in this room when it first started because my husband and i had adopted a couple kiddos with autism and i just really loved that this room was happening that we were getting this room and i was just so invested in having somewhere to bring my kids that was just something so wonderful for the whole autism community that i was just so excited about it that i was like please let me do this go ahead that was now what is the misconceptions around people with autism and now you bring mental health into the mix so it is there more misconceptions around that mental health and autism or both you know personally i think the biggest misconception is that that if you that anybody with autism with or without mental health is anything like anybody else with autism i think people think that if they know one person with autism or a mental illness that they know them all i think that's a huge misconception example i think people think that they're all the same and none of them are no one person is like any other person and i think that's true for all people at one time yes so when you book this room for an hour it's yours for the hour so there it's not like you have to share it with anybody so if you want to like example you mentioned music so if you want to like have um if if if you want to like have your special kind of music that you listen to for that hour like example um i don't know like um disco or or or like the rocky tunes or something like that yeah and you you know and you want to work out in that room to let off stress like exercise the robics and that kind of thing you can do that oh yes yeah if you book that room it's yours for the hour that's it you go dance dance you do your yeah you go in you do your thing it's yours okay and if you go in there alone for the hour it's yours if you go in there and you would enjoy it more if you brought five of your friends you do that it's yours for the hour okay yeah it's a beautiful thing i think we're gonna start going now but um here's the thing um now is this um how can i put this um so uh there's newsman rooms in well in new england right there's others correct there's one other in northern new england there's one in rhoda island in all the united states there's none this is the only there are others in the united states the only other one in northern new england is rhoda island now the word snoozling is that an international word so obviously is there internationally snoozling or there are it's a dutch word yeah there are others the other closest to us is in toronto okay well yeah so it's pretty exclusive around here but canada now during coronavirus how is this snoozling working i mean obviously we were following the whole time fold the whole time oh okay yeah we never had to close and i'll tell you why because it was already a naturally embedded thing that everybody who uses that room has to clean it before they leave and because it's only used by one person or group at a time what do you mean by cleaning like sanitation yeah like it's like going to a gym you book your hour you go in and use the room and you clean everything before you leave that was already a naturally so you sanitize the whole room yep every time you use it and that was already a normal practice so we never had to close oh okay so it just stayed open which was wonderful because for so many people to use the room everything else in their life had changed so much and so few people could understand why that this is the one thing that remained the same for them that everybody just kept coming okay now in terms of you raised money for this we can mention that and you went above and beyond from what i heard heard what was raised and and if you can explain the matching fund or what a matching fund is for those that don't know so we just had yeah very successful fundraiser i had a lot of help so we recently celebrated our fifth year anniversary and we did an internal fundraiser and internally we raised just about five thousand dollars mm-hmm and yeah it was a nice one and it wasn't 23 you said well or just our internal employees and some letters that we sent out to local businesses we raised five k and w tire of berlin matched it and then we received a grant from the dug flutie junior foundation for our duty the football player yes for 750 dollars and then an anonymous donor through k and w tire sent us an additional 15 000 and that brought us to 23 000 429 and 10 cents okay for that was our total you've never met the dug flutie you just got to no they were offering a chance at a grant and so i nominated the room they were offering nominations for people who did you know outstanding work during the pandemic at offering outlets or you know services during the shutdown and i said we didn't shut down so i nominated the room for staying open and we want a grant so okay i'm glad we glad we got in on that action now according to the website um it says here maybe you can bring this into light uh the snooze learning experience is is not the equipment but the control tools and have over it yeah so what exactly is that is meant by that sentence right so there is some amazing equipment in the room like the zero gravity massage chair and the bubble tubes and the vibrating things and the smelly things but because the people using the room get to choose what they want and they can choose the intensity of the vibration or they can choose the sense because they have total control over the room they change the colors they choose the sounds they can shut off or turn on the lights that having control and understanding that they're making the thing happen is empowering and that is really what makes that experience now um it says here snooze learning translates to sniffing and dosing now in terms of um smell sense of smell um some people like to eat good food um do you have in the room a situation where aroma like if somebody okay i'm hungry you know that kind of thing can they bring can you cook in the room can you do some kind of thing with food or recipes or unfortunately no one of the one of the only real is dead fast rules in the room is that no food or drink is allowed and that's because there's no funding and so we really can't afford to clean up big messes and so we try to keep anything that will be super damaging out of there so so no so the aroma therapy is nice but you can't be staining or spilling no aromas of food i meant like oh well you can put any smell you want in the aroma therapy machine but we can't be cooking no so no barbecue grill smell well you could put if you can find an essential oil of that you could put it in the machine charcoal smelling hamburgers sounds if you can find that in a aroma therapy you could put it in the machine maybe we should talk we should talk yeah um no no no but there's different smells yeah um i've worked with students with autism before so different smells help them yeah you know yeah push pasta eating yeah for sure and now um society um you know sometimes when they see this goes back to misconceptions sometimes when they see people with autism and their mannerisms of like rocking back and forth or or or you know blurting out certain things or they might be do diagnosed you know with mental and physical um how does therapy change that or help with that to not um deal with the norm you know societies you know sometimes because years ago people with special needs used to be like institutionalized right so uh do you understand what i'm saying like how how do societies norms change let's see if i can redo that question i'm sorry how does society change with the rules with stuff like this as far as the do you understand what i'm saying so one of one of the reasons that a room like this wouldn't be funded is because it's not something we can really measure outcomes for and you know if you can't measure an outcome you're not going to get funding right um i am i wrong with the question or no i don't your question isn't wrong i just think that it's a hard thing to measure and this room doesn't really give us a way to measure an outcome for that i will say that what i have seen at least in my own kids when we've been there um they don't have a lot of those visual kind of stems but i do see that when they leave they're more relaxed after having been there and what i what they do have for those obvious kind of things are less when they leave i do see less of that stuff and so if there was access to more of this kind of mechanism to relax i think that people would be able to see less of that kind of stuff so i think it would be a good way for people to reduce those things any question you want to ask i'm sorry i didn't hear all of it i'm sorry any certain hours so you can use the room yes so our building's business hours which i always have to look at because i'm not there the whole time um we're open from eight to four thirty monday through friday except on the holidays that the agency is closed no weekend we're not open on weekends um i always say yet and i always say that if somebody can absolutely not access it during the week like if somebody really wants to go but like mom or dad or the caregiver of whatever person works the same hours that we're open they can absolutely email me and i will find a way to meet them outside of business hours as often as possible i do have a lot of kids at home and so sometimes it's a little bit of finesse involved to try to find a time that will work for me and for the person who wants to go but i will work something out because i know what it's like to be at work all week and only be able to do things at night or on the weekend so while we're not open i will work something out okay and my ad my email is on it's on the first floor and it's on the first floor so it is accessible it is handicap accessible to someone's in a wheelchair it is yeah it's right on the first floor it's the we've got double doors in the front door and every door to the room is more than wide enough for wheelchairs tell us about history or randy lambarty and um how you guys got to meet and why he came up with the snoozling history so the lambarty family is a local family in in vermont in berry in berry yep and they have a family member who has autism and they formed the autism puzzle foundation of vermont they saw how tough it was for families to access things that they needed for their family members and so they formed this foundation to raise money to help people get access to the things that they needed and so they did fundraisers and people could come to them and apply for scholarships to get things that they needed and so you know if your kid needed an adaptive bike then they would apply for the money and attend them or something yeah you know or a trike or something things like that money for camps money for adaptive equipment whatever and so they did that for 10 years and then when um kay lambarty who was the grandmother of the family passed away they decided you know they'd done it for a very long time and they really just kind of wanted to wrap it up and go out with a big bang and this room was the big bang and so they contracted with flag house yeah flag house international new jersey yeah they they have all kinds of um accessible like toys and different things yeah they have amazing equipment and i've interviewed them in new york so yeah i know them yeah and that's the company that installs the official snoozlin equipment yeah yeah um small world because people all these agencies flag house and you know you probably have do you have help from the autism society of america um we don't okay no but i am putting in a huge flag house order pretty soon with the money we just raised to replace lots of broken things and to get some new things so yeah okay pretty excited yes um okay so we have some time left but um so what is the future of snoozlin it's gonna stay around correct our room yeah oh yes we'll continue to do fundraising to keep you know we have to maintain it and we're always looking for new fun things um there are some area people that like to help us so the Knights of columbus has donated money for the what we call the family use fund so to help people access the room who maybe can't afford it um they've donated money for that the Rotary club gave us an air purifier our very first year so that people who want to use it that don't like the aromatherapy can come in without smelling all that stuff air purifier just gives clean air to the yeah just cleans it up so it doesn't smell in between uses you know um the there was a a student at berry city elementary he's now a spaulding student he did a fundraiser for us a couple years ago jack touche led some other students did a fundraiser bought us a ball pit um but baseball no a big ball pit like huge big foam thing no i'm thinking baseball like a uh because i've i've been so like baseball fields and you know like a batting cage yeah well that would be awesome but no it's a big big bin full of balls that you can climb into and oh i've seen those yeah that's awesome like a trampoline but almost but it's just all balls and then one year i did a fundraiser and we ended up with a check from the um john mclare foundation i've heard of them and bought a swing for us so our building a tire swing uh it's a it's a big like ot swing and so it's got a frame and it's got a seat that when you sit in it the sides kind of come in and hug you it's so nice but our building isn't set up in a way that we could hang a swing and so it's got a nice big frame and so lots of people want to help us it's really nice so i like to you know thank those people um when you have the questions okay go ahead so you know i like to thank people that help keep us going so you know every every now and then we send out a letter to the people that have memberships and to our clients that use the room most often and say and what else would you like to see and so we try to put out feelers like what else would be useful in the room what about video well okay um question i'm big on um sensory stuff with videos so like so you have a projector yes okay um that what about showing i don't know like music videos in space or in the snooze in the room or some other kind of sensory videos to see i have epilepsy okay i can't for in terms of sensory for me i can't watch a 3d uh movie or i can't go in the musical park ride that has 3d stuff because or flashing lights right now does the snooze in the room have flashing lights and stuff like that well no yes or no so what i am told about the program that is in the computer there is nothing in there that should cause seizures seizures okay okay but can you show videos or stuff so yeah the program that we have in there that does have videos has um there are three categories in the program in the computer there's a relaxation an education and a stimulation so it's got music it's got like american bandstand it's got stuff from other countries it's got educational stuff it's got some pretty amazing amazing stuff in there it's got videos of like outer space it's got some really cool stuff but then it's got some really cute like i say little kid stuff but people of all ages could enjoy it you know sesame street things really more just like it's got these really cute like little sailboats with like teddy bears kind of going around stuff you'd see like on a little crib mobile kind of thing you know just but like with really relaxing music and any tropical islands yes yes and and like streams in the woods and you can like oh Hawaii yeah so nice and like oceans and seagulls and okay sometimes that you guys need to come down sometimes at night like i'm listening to like um the the ocean if i go to sleep or you know that kind of thing yeah all kinds of stuff okay yeah it's got some great stuff well um we would uh definitely like to think um heather slainton and washington county mental health um can you give us the address please where people can address a phone number yes we are at 23 summer street in berry and the phone number is 479 4055 okay we would like to thank um washington county mental health for sponsoring um abledon on air and uh for helping us with this topic um we would also like to thank our other sponsors green mountain support services um again washington county mental health and many others including um the muslim media corporation and um other partners such as the vermont division for the blind and visually impaired again thank you for joining us on this edition of abledon on air i'm lord insider see you next time abledon on air is sponsored by green mountain support services empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community washington county mental health where hope and support comes together media sponsors for abledon on air include park chester times muslim community report w w w this is the bronx dot info associated press media editors new york parrot online newspaper us press corps domestic and international anchor fm and spotify partners with abledon on air include yehad new york and new england where everyone belongs the orthodox union and the vermont division for the blind and visually impaired abledon on air has been seen in the following publications park chester times new york parrot online newspaper muslim community report w w w this is the bronx dot info and w w w dot h dot com abledon on air is a member of the national academy for television arts and sciences boston new england chapter