NYBERG: Roses for Autism

(WTNH) -- Guilford is home to New England's last Rose farm. Known as Pinchbeck's, it produces three million roses a year. It was all but shut down in 2009, because of stiff competition from around the world.

The historic 1920's farm regained life when a friend of Tom Pinchbeck's came to him looking for opportunities for his son who is on the autism spectrum, and Roses For Autism was born.

"When folks on the autism spectrum turn 21, and this is where Joan (Volpe) might be able to help me, then they are no longer able to get help through the town for education and things like that," Tom said.

"So we need a place for these folks to go and to work," Ann said.

"He was looking at this down the road and he knew that he wanted to try and help set something up for his son and for other people like his son, and he thought he could use the greenhouses and the farm background as a vocational training ground program ... and it's worked."

Joan Volpe, executive director of Roses for Autism, explained how it works.

"It works where individuals can come to Roses For Autism and learn the necessary skills that an employer is looking for," she said. "So some folks come to us that have never had any work experience before, so we work with them about the importance of arriving to work on time, what's appropriate attire to wear to work, how to do you work as a team, as part of a team member, what is the appropriate conversation to have at work, how do you take direction from a supervisor, when you're done with a task, how do you transfer over to the next task, and take initiative to do that. So we really have individuals coming through and working all aspects of the business to learn how to work in different team environments, and we really change things up as part of the daily business. You might be working on one task one moment and the priority of the business shifts, and we need to shift our employees over to the other focus of the business."

Roses for Autism is now a real working environment for those on the autism spectrum to gather life skills and they are continuing to reach out to the community to grow their business in new ways.

To find out more about them go to rosesforautism.com