BY DAN PAGE
UCLA Today
Lauri Fitz-Simmons bundles up 3-year-old Patrick
for the 35-mile drive from Santa Clarita to UCLA Neuropsychiatric
Hospital three times each week so he can attend a social skills
program for autistic children.
She used to spend Patrick’s class time
in Westwood Village, watching movies, drinking expensive coffee
or shopping for clothing she really didn’t need.
With the opening of the Nathanson Family Resource
Center, however, she now spends her time perusing the growing
resource library or surfing the Internet via high-speed DSL
lines for the latest information on autism. She enjoys the comfortable
furnishings, featuring soothing neutral tones with rich mahogany
accents.
“The access to the Internet is great.
I don’t normally have time to do research at home because
I’m taking care of my child,” she said. “Parents
were having to kill time in Westwood. This way, we’re
able to use the time productively.”
Located just off of the B-level lobby, the
new Nathanson Family Resource Center offers patient families
and friends access to a library and technology center, a family
room with plush reading chairs and a play corner for children,
along with a spacious conference room.
“We wanted to help fill a need that was
going unmet at UCLA Health Sciences,” said Jane Nathanson,
who along with her husband, Marc, supports the center financially.
“We wanted to create a comfortable, richly stocked resource
center located in a calming, homelike environment.”
Under the leadership of interim center director
Margaret Stuber, professor-in-residence of psychiatry, the center
is also coordinating family programs, organizing public lectures
and fostering development of community resources. A growing
number of support and training groups also meet in the center.
“The center is an invaluable resource
to our patients’ families,” Stuber said. “We
are grateful to the Nathansons and expect the center’s
programs to grow and flourish in the coming months and years.”
