As some of you may know, my son Johnathon, has Autism. I am taking classes in Fire Science just to learn more about the life of a Firefighter, cause my dream is to one day be an EMT for Metro here in Tennessee. The stations here are were the EMT are with the Firefighters and I wanted to be more aware of their jobs also. I was blown away by all the things FF have to know and learn and are responsible for just on a everyday basis. I could not believe the lack of community support and concern for these WONDERFUL men and women here. I mean its like "we don't want ya, till (God forbid) we need ya". And the TRAINING ALL THE TIME!!! MY goodness; I know now for sure that God puts a little something extra when He makes a Firefighter. If I didn't have enough respect before, I know now that it has increased ten times more now after taking this class. I always see FF and first response people at all the communities events such as night out against crime, and dare campaigns, and so on; and dummy me just thought that they were all together and getting the same amount of support. That is until a few weeks ago when I asked the question "would a FF know how to handle my child, a child with autism"? I'm sure some of you know the answer I got..When Johnathon was diagnosed after the shock, I learned all I could about autism, (and I am still learning) and I will be honest it wasn't till maybe a year or so after that , when I thought wow, I need to let law enforcement and the Firemen here in LaVergne know about his condition and how he may or may not react in the case of an emergency. I was greeted with open arms by both agencies and to this day still. I just assumed that people did this in the community or that there was an organization that took care of things like this. Boy was I wrong. So I contacted the American Autism Society of Tennessee, for information and they gave me some materials and tapes and as I was watching the tapes it seemed that everything was based on what law enforcement should do and was mainly aimed toward that. I am in no way knocking the police I have a family full, but, MY GOD do people not realize what ALL the things FF do???? Why isn't there a night set aside for FF? So here is my question; does any one know of a group or organization that helps the FF learn about autism? I know that is all you need is something else to learn about and get trained on. But, I truly believe that if we can get the autism community involved in fire safety/first response; one could help the other. People will start to see just how much FF are involved in A LOT MORE than just putting out fires. I know other states have communities someone in a station has been touched by autism and gets support; this is what needs to happen here, so if anyone can help with some information, I would appriciate it. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR ALL YOU DO AND PLEASE BE SAFE!!!