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Fifteen Fabulous Facts of EAP

Sprouted as an ad hoc project, EAP Malaysia now proudly celebrates its 15th year as the pioneer in provision of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) Therapy in Malaysia! Cliche as it seems, we believe that the best way to commemorate this special milestone is none other than a walk down the memory lane, through the history, achievement and outcome of the indefatigable effort of the team. So here, as EAP Malaysia celebrates its 15th birthday, we bring to you–the Fifteen Fabulous Facts of EAP!

1. The START

EAP Malaysia started off as an ad hoc workshop model by the WEAP Sydney in 2004. Eventually, that temporary project sprouted into something permanent when we set up Early Autism Project Malaysia as a company in 2006, and have continuously served the autism community as the world class provider of ABA therapy services in Malaysia.

2. Centre-based Sessions

Being the first in the country that provides ABA therapy, we started off with only home-based sessions, until 2009 where we launched our first centre! Providing centre-based sessions allows us to maximize the impact of the environment in the best interest of the children, other than enabling children to generalise their skills outside the comfort of their home.

(Key people celebrating their 10 year anniversary in 2021 – Left to right: Jochebed Isaacs, Rachel Gomez, Emma Sajidah)

3. The Backbone of EAP: Our Team!

We owe all of these significant moments to the key people at EAP! Introducing our director, Jochebed Isaacs who had been in EAP Malaysia since the very start, making her the very first employee of EAP Malaysia. This year, Jo celebrates her 10th anniversary as the director of EAP Malaysia, marking her milestone in her persistent contribution to the autism community. 

This 10 year anniversary is shared with Rachel Gomez & Emma Sajidah who also celebrate a decade at EAP this year! Rachel is one of our Senior Supervisors and carries multiple hats as she also oversees our Intake, Schedule and is pursuing her BCBA too while Emma currently oversees Autism at Home and our partnership with NASOM!

(Charmaine Koay, Head of Clinical Operations)

At the same time, we would also like to honour our Head of Clinical Operations, Charmaine Koay who celebrates 10 years with EAP next year! She joined EAP in 2012 and has since then been one of the strongest pillars of EAP Malaysia, leading and guiding the clinic team in ensuring our clients receive the best quality of service. 

(Key people celebrating their 5 year anniversary in 2021 – Left to right: Neeshallini, Tiffany Loh, Alice Ang)

We also celebrate a few other Clinic Team Members who have been with us for 5 years this year and have been a big part of EAP – Neeshallini, Tiffany Loh and Alice Ang!

Special appreciation to our Executive Team that consists of Jo, Charmaine Koay, Avi Ong, Rachel Gomez, Yu Chen; and our current Clinic Team – Alice Ang, Emma Sajidah, Michelle Yong, Jean Lim, Evie Tan, Tiffany Loh, Darshinaa Velavan, Sabine Fernandez, Neeshallini, Alia Atiqa, Qi Rui and Nurulhuda, for the strength, endless support and passion they carry in overseeing and leading their respective areas with excellence!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNwR4d5FHn0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

EAP has grown from a team of 2 to a team of over 70 over the past 15 years! A big shout to our team of dedicated therapists who have carried EAP to where it is right now and playing a part in all the amazing achievements we’ve had over the years!

4. EAP MALAYSIA Blog 

In 2012, we launched our very own blog in order to provide a reliable source of autism related content. Through our blog articles, we have shared multiple resources, strategies, facts, as well as raising awareness on autism. A year later, we decided that the blog deserved a better platform and we moved it to our very own website!

Walk for Autism Highlights

5. Public Campaign

Creating awareness and being the voice for the autistic community has been our biggest drive and public campaigns are one of the important channels for us to achieve that. In 2012, Walk for Autism reached the local community as we were given the opportunity to educate and raise awareness, which has eventually led to the start of our #LoveSomeoneWithAutism campaigns with hopes of continuing to raise awareness and acceptance of autism as well as to reach people all over the world. 

Over the years, we had grown so much and the movement of #LoveSomeoneWithAutism has reached people all around the world via social media. We have gone through multiple other events and campaign before marking #LoveSomeoneWithAutism as the face of our public campaign. Each year, in conjunction with the World Autism Awareness Month in April, we launch the #LoveSomeoneWithAutism campaign, creating a space for people to share their own story, giving the public a glance of what it’s like to be living as, and/or with an autistic individual. Under this campaign, multiple projects were released. We reached out to schools with our #KindnessStartsWithMe campaigns, advocating kindness and anti-bullying acts by educating children on embracing differences. We collaborated with multiple organisations like H&M, GSC Cinema and Fly Project to name a few, in the effort to raise funds and create awareness on autism.

6. Youtube Channel

We started a Youtube channel in 2012 in order to reach more people as we continue to spread awareness and share clinical resources. It also serves as a platform for us to share the highlights and events that are happening in the company.  Proudly, we have reached over 9000 subscribers this year, and we are now bringing more to the channel with Autism At Home. 

7. EAP Logo 

In 2013, EAP Malaysia came up with our own unique logo that represents our   identity – who we are and what we do. The colourful puzzle pieces signifies the diversity and complexity of autism, and the heart shape in the middle is a symbol of love and acceptance. 

8. Scholarships

Throughout the years, we cross paths with many families and bear the greed to help as many people as we can. Fortunately, we were able to give out one-year scholarships to 2 children as they access our service and progress further. The two children are siblings that are able to finish their programs and show progress tremendously. More on their background and journey can be found on the Hope Project page. 

9. The Hope Project 

In our 10th year, EAP Malaysia took another big step. Founded by Jochebed Isaacs, we launched a non-profit initiative named THE HOPE PROJECT. The vision for this initiative is to enable the world-class service that we always promised to our clients accessible by the public too. It is not a secret that ABA therapy can be hefty in price and therefore unattainable for some. With the vision to increase the accessibility of our services, we had been working for years in making this dream a reality. Today, standing in the glory of 15 years, we are as close as we are with that dream. With Autism At Home, founded as part of The Hope Project, we created a free platform where you can get all resources you need in assisting individuals with autism. This by far has been one of our biggest pride, the closest we can get to the dream of bringing our service right to your doorstep!

10. The Big Boys Club

In line with the fact that the individuals we work with grow up over time, the boys would need a different set of skills and experience to better benefit from the therapy. In order to fulfill the need to generalise all their skills and provide the right environment and opportunity, we set up the Big Boys Club in 2016. The Big Boys Club is famous in EAP for their special skills that never failed to amaze us, such as cooking, baking, DIY craft projects for special occasions and also to raise funds for The Hope Project. Not to mention their sense of humour and ability to crack a few jokes on the spot. It is always an amazing experience hanging out with the Big Boys!

11. EAP School

As we work with multiple individuals, we strive to make sure they benefit the most according to their needs. Afterall, therapy is always individualised here in EAP Malaysia. In 2018, EAP School was started, enrolling some of our kiddos in order to fulfil the need to practise generalising their skills in school settings. However, for some of these kiddos, enrolling in a mainstream school might not be the best option considering their skill sets. Thus, we took that into our own hands and decided to provide the school experience. In EAP School, we adapted school activities, schedules and rules in order to simulate a real school experience, in addition to practising independence, enjoy personalised lessons and progress accordingly in their social skills.

12. Autism At Home

As mentioned above, Autism at Home was made possible thanks to the Hope Project. After 5 years, the reverberation of the endless effort finally shows. We managed to come up with modules, platforms and are rolling the project out as to this date. Autism At Home is a resource platform that will allow the public to benefit for free as we share resources on how to help autistic individuals. Each lesson is published by series and there are multiple versions of the resources. All it takes is for you to sign up, enroll for the modules and you will be able to enjoy all the resources! 

13. EAP Sunway @ The Parenthood

We managed to open up our second branch in The Parenthood at Sunway Pyramid Mall. Operated since 2020, our second centre had placed clients from the area and offered the same services. The pandemic did put a hold on both centres and we were only able to do home sessions for some time. However, now that things start looking good again, we too are excited to keep optimising our centres!

14. Family Day

We go big on celebration, and we shall not go home and sit still about it! We pour our heart and soul in making a difference and we have a passion for celebration. Thus, we do celebrate all the milestones as a company annually. Each year, we would gather on Family Day as we enjoy the company of others and watch how far the kiddos have grown. Talents, dedication and creativity had brought us a live production in 2019. The celebration was grand and wonderful. The kiddos worked hard, practising and performing on stage on the day itself. Even when we were hit with the pandemic, we did not stop and let the virus steal the fun. For two years in a row, EAP Malaysia came up with online production as we get the whole company participating in the event. 2020 and 2021 had been really the year that we stretch out and choose a different kind of creativity. Families gather in the comfort of their own home but we were still together, connected online. Surely enough, this celebration will continue for the coming years and we are looking forward to it each year!

15. Impact 

Last but not least, we would like to humbly thank all the families that have chosen us and trusted us to provide services to their families. By this year, we had been able to help more than 500 individuals and families that had come from 31 different countries. We dream to continue our impact. All that we do are possible when we were given the chance, trust and space by the clients that decide to put faith in our service. Each time, we stand by the values that we carry and will always try our best in serving others. 

Thank you for staying with us until the end of the list! 

Summarising our 15-year journey in a list does not do justice to express the wholesome experiences. We wish to document every single milestone, achievements, even the hardships so we can always look back and realise how far we have come. The journey has been a roller coaster ride full of bumps and thrills, but every step and every moment counts in fueling our passion and motivation. We are only able to grow better as we serve more so we owe this good quality service to the trust given to us by all our clients. Not missing out our wonderful EAP team that always gives their best in every situation! 

We are proud of who we are today, and we are grateful for the journey that brought us all the way here. EAP Malaysia shall continue it’s voyage in providing world class services that support individuals with autism and their families in leading fulfilling lives.

Reference:

  1. https://autismmalaysia.com/about-us/blog/ 
  2. https://www.youtube.com/user/autismmalaysia 
  3. https://www.instagram.com/eaphopeproject/?hl=en 
  4. https://autismmalaysia.com/the-hope-project/ 
  5. https://www.instagram.com/eapbigboysclub/?hl=en
  6. https://www.autismmalaysia.com/autismathome/Â