OXFORD — The Oxford Fire Rescue Department wants to make sure its interactions with people with autism come with as little anxiety and stress as possible.

The Oxford Fire Rescue Department displays items in its autism kits Tuesday at the Public Safety Building on Main Street. Items include a noise-canceling headset and fidget toys to help patients during rescue calls. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

It believes it has found the perfect tool to facilitate those encounters: an autism kit.

“I feel that people on the autism spectrum or with autism have been overlooked for quite some time, especially in the emergency services realm,” Fire Chief Ashley Wax-Armstrong said. “We get our ideas from TikTok, Instagram, viral videos. And we’re seeing other departments across the country adding autism kits.

“When they’re in crisis, people on the spectrum obviously don’t do so well with the loud noises or people they aren’t familiar with,” she said. “It’s basically what we bring with us: flashing lights and sirens and all of that.”

An autism kit is a drawstring backpack with fidget toys and other little gizmos, as well as noise-canceling headsets.

“The fidget toys all have different features and textures,” she said. There is a set of magnetized rings, clickers, a squishy stress ball and a raised surface plastic ball and chains and cords.

The kits are provided to people as a distraction to help responders tend to their immediate needs.

“We wanted to have some sort of tool to help calm people down – whether it’s a child or an adult,” Wax-Armstrong said. “It can help even if they’re not the one in crisis. It could be a house fire or situation at a neighbor’s and they’re starting to have a reaction.”

Oxford Fire Chief Ashley Wax-Armstrong pulls an autism kit Tuesday from her vehicle at the Public Safety Building on Main Street. The kits, which are also stocked in the town’s ambulance and main fire engine, are distributed to children and adults who can be triggered by the chaos surrounding first-responder calls. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

The kits have been stocked in both ambulances, the fire chief’s vehicle and Fire Engine 6, which is typically the first to respond to calls.

Wax-Armstrong said an Emergency Management Services team’s first use of the kit was at an Oxford store where it helped engage a child within a few minutes of their receiving it.

The eight initial kits cost $220. The Oxford Fire Rescue Association plans to donate additional kits as they need to be replenished.

“We wanted them reasonable in price and easy to replicate,” Wax-Armstrong said. “We don’t expect them to choose one thing to play with, we give them the whole kit – it’s theirs.”