‘Mean Mom’ fights for families faced with autism

PORT MARIA, St Mary — When Tabika Bowerbank’s four-year-old son Mali was diagnosed with autism in 2020, she felt as if her world had shifted. She navigated speech delays, therapy schedules, and there were many days at 2:00 am when she would be Googling: How do I help my child?

“I wished someone would just hand me a road map and say, ‘Start here,’ ” she recalled during a recent interview with the Jamaica Observer.

Bowerbank lives overseas and was able to eventually access the resources needed, but her heart kept going back to Jamaica, where she was born and educated up to college level.