Business Education Lifestyle & Culture
Training young adults with autism to bake
By Ehvan Fennell
Parents Nigel Thompson and Qiana Daniels have had some challenges in navigating the world of needs facing their son, who is moderately autistic. Especially when he was younger, they had to make sure he had such essential things as speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy.
But there was more.
“What would his future look like?” said Thompson, a retired police officer and Institute of Culinary Education-trained artisan baker, reflecting.
“What are we gonna do when Nigel finishes school?” said Daniels, a veteran public school teacher.
Those questions shifted them in a new direction. Daniels and Thompson co-founded Kindred Bakery BK, a nonprofit teaching baking to Nigel Thompson Jr., 21, who has autism spectrum disorder, and other neurodiverse 18- to 24-year-olds, including those whose disabilities are not readily apparent.
Daniels calls Kindred “a bakery space for people like Nigel to come to learn culinary skills and to go as far as they possibly can in this profession. And, if not, then, at least become more independent in the space that they’re in.”
Formed in 2022, Kindred started offering baking classes in a shared kitchen in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood in 2023. In addition to teaching autistic young adults a skill that might bring them a paycheck, Kindred is teaching professionalism, business operations and social and other life skills.
Participants train for 16 weeks, completing two three-hour classes each week. The courses cover food safety, pastry arts and other aspects of baking.
For Kindred alumnus Raphael Brown, the bakery helped him grow in various ways.
The “space is very important for those kinds of people,” said Brown of what Kindred does for individuals who, like him, have been diagnosed with autism. Those with the brain development disorder can range from being highly intelligent to intellectually disabled. Symptoms, which can range from mild to severe, include everything from social awkwardness and not making eye contact to extreme aggression and inability to talk.
On weekdays, Brown, who has autism, works part-time as a data entry clerk. On weekends, he’s a kitchen assistant at Kindred.
“You can see, lots of cinnamon, vanilla extract, spices, cocoa powder. We’ll always have extra so that our volunteers and our program participants and staff can take home the pastries with them,” he said. What Kindred does is “very important.”
It’s critical that young people with disabilities do more than just fall off what’s called the “disability cliff,” parents and advocates for those with autism say. In New York State, students diagnosed with a variety of disabilities can attend public schools until they turn 22. After that, they’re on their own. Depending on their level of disability, leaving public schools and its supportive resources can be detrimental.
In the first two years after exiting high school, roughly 40% of young adults with autism received no support at all, according to a study published in 2019 in the journal Autism Research. Nine percent were receiving speech therapy, 23.5% were receiving medical evaluation and assessment, 35% were receiving mental health services and 41.9% were receiving case management, according to the team of researchers from Utah State University, the University of Wisconsin and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Those realities are what motivate Nigel Jr.’s parents. They endured a lot before deciding to launch their nonprofit. Nigel Jr. started elementary school in the Bronx and continued middle school in Brooklyn — as his parents searched for more and better services in public schools. They wound up paying for him to enroll in The Rebecca School and Manhattan Children’s Center, both private schools.
“It’s not to say that New York state doesn’t have a lot of resources; there are a lot of resources,” Thompson said. “It’s just a maze, a disconnect. So, it creates a lot of confusion.”
He and Daniels, who co-parent, want other parents and children with autism to have an easier way to go and, after they leave high school, a flourishing, productive life. Opening a second location in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village is part of their efforts in that direction. They take joy in it.
“It doesn’t seem like work,” Daniels said. “It’s family. Because these are the things that we always wanted for Nigel.“