Myer said the goals of the project include improving the parenting skills of parents, improving the leadership capabilities of parents and positively impacting the behavior of school children. Parents who are interested in attending the seminars and …
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Maples and Calder recently donated CI$10,000 to the Special Needs Foundation of Cayman (“SNFC”) to assist with their specialised summer schools programme.
The SNFC is a charitable, non-profit organisation of parents, educators and professionals committed to supporting children with a range of special needs across the Cayman Islands.
Among many other initiatives, one aim of the SNFC is to provide specialised summer school options at little or no cost to its members, through a variety of therapies and service providers on island.
“we are pleased to support the Special Needs Foundation in their efforts to advocate for the families and individuals with special needs and to educate the community at large,” said Maples and Calder Managing Partner, Paul Lumsden. “we hope that this donation will allow greater access for member families to take advantage of the specialised summer schools programme being offered.”
Maples and Calder actively supports a broad range of organisations and initiatives which benefit members of the community, including the youth and the elderly.
Dubai Bushra Mohammad’s eyes glistened as she proudly watched her son Mohammad receive his graduation certificate on stage.
This was no ordinary graduation ceremony and little had Bushra, perhaps, expected that it would ever be possible.
The occasion was just as special for 11 other families as their children with special needs marked the completion of a six-month training programme in hospitality with Rotana Hotels.
“the best moment was when, after about two weeks in training, Mohammad came and told me that he wants to work. these six months of training have been life-changing. I saw his confidence rise and how he handled things independently,” said Bushra, who like, most other parents of individuals with special needs has been worried about making her child independent enough to be on their own.
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“it has given me a hope that he can be independent. Living with Down’s Syndrome is not as much an issue as is acceptance from the society. There is always a worry as to what they would do after he finishes his schooling,” she said sharing her fears.
Sharing their experiences about their daughter Rochelle’s training, Anne Marie John Baptiste and her husband Terry said: “on many days, she would role-play after she came home from training. the entire six months were exciting and we saw how her confidence rose and how she got better dealing with people.”
“I am so excited to see my sister Amal today, I never thought there would be a day like this, I have no words,” said a teary-eyed Mohammad, who had come with his mother Majida to attend the graduation ceremony.
“This was our third batch of students who got training during which they worked in a work environment. it is a step towards making them independent and also toward bringing more acceptance for them in the society,” Mariam Othman, Director, Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre, told Gulf News. “seeing our students get a chance to go in for training like this is nothing less than an achievement. Many of them have been with us since their childhood; we want them to be independent.”
Regarding job opportunities for special needs individuals, she said: “the training is the beginning. We do place some of them in our centre, and we are happy that organisations are opening up to the idea of providing them with employment opportunities.”
The students, who underwent the training were presented their certificates by Shaikh Juma Bin Maktoum Bin Juma Al Maktoum, Managing Director of Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre.
By Callie Shanafelt and Heather Gilligan
This is the first installment of two-part story on special needs children in rural California. for the second part of the story, an in-depth look at the lives of rural families with special needs children, click here.
Local health care is virtually non-existent for children with special needs living in rural California.
Few doctors who are trained to treat the complex conditions that afflict these children practice in remote parts of the state. Traveling to major cities where physicians are more plentiful is often a day-long journey. Families often find that the multiple doctors their children see don’t have a system for communicating with each other, and parents must coordinate their child’s care themselves.
But for many of these families, there is no alternative. Jobs, housing costs or indispensable connections to close relatives keep them from moving. and so they learn to cope with challenges that come with caring for a disabled child.
Roughly 80,000 children with special health care needs live in rural California, according to Dr. Ed Schor, pediatrician and Senior Vice President of Programs and Partnerships at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, which seeks to increase the quality and accessibility of health care for children.
Children with a range of health problems, from hearing impairments to autism to cancer, are classified as having special needs. They require care from sub-specialists, doctors who are trained in fields like pediatric gastroenterology and pediatric neurology, and are few and far between outside of cities.
Still, Crystal de Witt said, rural life gives her family the comfort of a familiar community. Her son Jace, age 3, has lots of grandmas and grandpas on his quiet block in a town outside of Marysville, and she prizes that kind of neighborliness. “I’m a small town girl,” de Witt said, smiling.
De Witt and her husband, a paramedic who works in Sacramento, own their home, and de Witt runs an in-home daycare. Moving to the city isn’t feasible for the family, despite the frequent trips to Sacramento that Jace needs, which take easily more than an hour each way. he was born with a long list of ongoing health needs including a hearing impairment, a too-short esophagus and a cleft palate.
Health care challenges are steep for children like Jace. Pediatric specialists usually practice in urban areas where more people live. the need for sub-specialists, who serve a relatively small population to begin with, may not be sufficient to support a practice in a rural area.
Such realities are combined with a national shortage in pediatric subspecialists, which is driven in part by reimbursement rates for Medicaid that are significantly lower than comparable services provided under Medicare, the federal insurance plan for the elderly, according to a 2010 report from the National Association of Children’s Hospitals. that gap discourages doctors from training for pediatric specialties, particularly as many of these patients rely on Medicaid, the NACH report said.
These factors add up to a long trek for children living far from major cities who need specialized care. Jace, for instance, takes at least weekly trips to Sacramento. To get a second opinion may require an even longer trip, as there are only so many pediatric specialists, even in a city that’s home to a major medical center like UC Davis.
Transportation is one of the biggest problems for families with special needs children anywhere, urban or rural, said the Lucile Packard Foundation’s Schor.
But transportation difficulties and other problems are amplified for families with special needs children who live in rural areas.
Alicia Hrico notes that the travel has an economic impact on families already stressed by medical expenses. Hrico is the Yuba County Office of Education’s Family Resource Center program facilitator, and works closely with the families of special needs children. Their most popular program, she said, is the one that offers $25 gas cards to help defray the costs of trips to see doctors. the costs of having a special needs child are typically so high that the program isn’t income-based, Hrico said.
Some families, she added, must routinely drive to Palo Alto, six-hours round trip, to get the specialized care that their children need. overall, ninety-five percent of children they serve must travel out of town to get medical care.
Besides the travel, coordination of care — the management of multiple doctors, occupational therapists, medical appointments and medical records — is often the biggest problem for families with special needs kids.
Cynthia Winward’s 18-month-old son has 10 pediatric specialists. James was born with an extremely rare form of hemophilia and quickly developed other ailments that include cerebral palsy and partial blindness. Winward felt like she was “living in hell” when she was adapting to life in Olivehurst, a small town outside of Marysville, Yuba County’s seat. Winward grew up in the suburbs of Ft. Worth, Texas and was used to having a choice of doctors. now, she must travel to Sacramento to see eight of James’ specialists. getting a second opinion will likely mean a trip to San Francisco.
Winward’s life revolves around the schedule she carefully updates on her smart phone. Typically, she makes five trips to Sacramento a month. the clinic at UC Davis where James gets the transfusions that keep him alive is open only once a month. his occupational therapist, one of two of James’ medical providers who is local, can’t communicate easily with his other doctors because of patient privacy laws, Winward said.
“It’s very complicated,” said Hrico of coordinating care for a child with multiple medical needs. In addition to coordinating doctors, families have to navigate several bureaucratic systems to make sure their children get care they can afford. Hrico helps families understand if they are eligible for California Child Services benefits and what benefits they are eligible for, and if they are eligible for Social Security for their child.
The problem of poorly coordinated care is compounded by geographical distance, Schor said. When a child is in a relatively closed system like a hospital, providers are using the same medical records. They see each other in the hallways. There are established lines of communication, formal and informal.
Relationships between primary care pediatricians and pediatric specialists can help compensate for the general lack of coordinated care for children outside of such a closed system, Schor said.
Rural pediatricians, however, are less likely to have such developed lines of communication. “When this child needs to see a pediatric specialist, and probably is the only child in your practice who will ever need this particular specialty, you are unlikely to know that specialist and have a relationship with them,” Schor said.
Eventually, the lack of coordination may have health consequences for the child. Duplication of services, prescribing medicine without complete medical records and failure to catch small problems before they become big are likely complications.
“If you don’t have communications systems established,” Schor said, “and the parent is struggling to be the go between, things get lost in translation.”
“I truly believe this is a real and substantial issue,” said Schor, who has traveled throughout the state collecting anecdotal information from families of special needs children. Developing solid solutions requires more systematically collected data, he added.
Some solutions that have promise include electronic medical records, records that are controlled by parents on a website where doctors can enter information, and public health nurses who coordinate care.
Though it’s a popular concept, a medical home probably isn’t the best solution for special needs kids in rural areas, Schor said. the medical home model relies on a primary care physician’s office coordinating care. Rural doctor’s offices, however, will see few special needs children in their practice, and typically children don’t require care coordination.
A public health nurse working with children across a county or counties is probably a better solution, Schor said. “If every county tries to solve it themselves, that’s poorly coordinated care again.”
In the meantime, families struggle to do the job on their own. though Cynthia Winward no longer makes the six to eight trips a month to Sacramento that were routine during James’ first year, she still has to make regular trips to the city, and worries about what will happen when she has more children.
“I’m going to have to take care of two, so it’s like okay…do I leave him at the hospital alone for three days so I can take care of my other kids?” Winward said, “Or do I drive my kid up there every day back and forth?”
Winward has seen first-hand the effects these difficult situations can have on children.
“We’ve been in rooms with kids who did not have any visitors at all,” Winward said. James once shared a hospital room with a young girl who didn’t have a single visitor in four days. “She didn’t have somebody there. You see things like that, and you know it’s inaccessible.”
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This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2012 at 12:02 am and is filed under California Health Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A Texas fashion blogger and model who was injured in a runway accident after a flight to look at Christmas lights last December, has a new book at the same time her parents are featured in a Christian video project, “I Am Second.
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DUBAI – this 17-year-old knew he would do well in his Grade 12 exams but becoming the ICSE topper worldwide with 99.5 percent marks was unimaginable.
India-born Rohan Sampath now looks forward to joining Stanford University and unlike many brought up in Dubai, he really hopes he can return to India some day.
“My first reaction was disbelief. I thought it was a typo. I didn’t expect it,” Rohan, a science student of Dubai Modern High School, said in an interview.
Born in Mumbai, Rohan scored 100 percent in mathematics, 100 percent in physics, 100 percent in computer science and 98 percent in English, becoming the highest scorer in the history of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) examinations.
His parents, who have been in Dubai for 18 years, are naturally overjoyed but say they were more elated when he got through both Stanford and Yale universities in the US.
“We were not that concerned about marks. He has been topping in school every year with 98 percent. My elation was higher when he got through Stanford and Yale. Only later when we realised that he had topped ICSE across the world, then of course we were very happy,” said his mother Sandhya Sampath.
Rohan has chosen to attend Stanford University and study either economics or engineering. Private tuition classes have no place in Rohan’s study mantra, defying a trend among a majority of Indian families.
“I’ve been an opponent of tuitions. Teachers in school have been instrumental in my success. I look at private tuitions as an insult to my teachers as I trust them completely,” said Rohan.
Two of the government’s flagship academy schools are facing legal challenges for refusing to admit children with statements of special needs.
In one case involving Mossbourne academy in Hackney, east London, which has been celebrated for its academic record, the school refused to admit an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, arguing it would compromise other children’s education and it already has a higher than average number of pupils with special needs. The London Oratory, a Catholic school in Fulham which became an academy last year, is also facing a special needs legal challenge.
The cases suggest academies may not have the same legal obligations to children with special needs as maintained schools. while parents of children with special needs have the right to appeal against a decision at any other school, lawyers are concerned that academies can turn them away with no recourse. The legal cases could have widespread implications as more than half of secondaries in England are now academies.
There are up to 30 cases of children with special needs who have been refused an academy place, according to Ipsea, the special needs advice service. eight involve Mossbourne which was one of the first academies and has won praise from both Labour and the Tories for its pupils’ achievement. After last year’s A-level results,seven pupils from the school won places at Cambridge.
The Learning Trust, which manages education in Hackney, refused to name Mossbourne in the boy’s statement, the document setting out a child’s needs and the help they should receive, including the name of the school they will attend. such statements are given to children with the most severe special needs and 2.7% of schoolchildren in England have them.
While he is academically gifted – he already has GCSE Maths A* – his condition can make him unsteady on his feet. it also affects his ability at practical tasks such as using a ruler.
The boy’s mother, Sarah Creighton, said: “We said, ‘In what way can you possibly say [he] is going to interfere with the other children’s education?’ He’s top of the year in all his subjects, he’s got GCSE Maths A* already, he’s won the pan-Hackney debating challenge two years running, he’s a prefect and a reading mentor at his school. obviously, I’m his mother, and I’m very, very proud of him. But I think I’m justifiably very proud of him.”
The family’s lawyers say Mossbourne has refused to accept that the Sspecial educational needs tribunal – a court which hears school place appeals by parents of children with such needs– should hear the case. they say the school claimed it was not governed by legislation for state schools but only by its funding agreement with the education secretary.
The Learning Trust applied successfully to have the case struck out but the family has lodged an appeal to a higher court.
Elaine Maxwell, a partner at Maxwell Gillott solicitors, for the family, said: “The academy may have good grounds for refusing to take a particular child in an individual case, … but that should be an argument they make before a tribunal – they shouldn’t have it struck out before they get there.
“When you get a school saying it’s full, that’s not an end to it. The child or his parents should be able to say: does our disadvantage outweigh the disadvantage to other children? There’s a balancing act that has to be struck.”
She added: “How are academies accountable? This has been inherent in academies from the beginning. If academies aren’t bound by SEN provisions and the tribunal system, then the parents of a child with a statement have fewer rights than anyone else.”
Mossbourne told the family their son’s admission “would be incompatible with the efficient education of other pupils at the academy”. A local authority can legally decline to name a school in a statement if the child’s presence would have a negative impact on the education of existing pupils. This could mean, for example, reducing the level of pastoral care available to other children.
The academy said nearly 1,600 children applied for 200 places in its September 2012 intake. of those, 53 have statements. of the 53, 28 named Mossbourne as their first preference. Nationally, 21% of schoolchildren have some form of special needs but at Mossbourne the proportion in each year is 26%-28%.
The boy’s family argue that his statement comes with funds that would help the school to provide for him.
Creighton said: “Part of me feels that this seems so blatantly wrong: that a school can say, ‘These regulations set up to protect disabled people don’t apply to us, so we don’t have to live by them.’ That seems so wrong, that anyone would be able to do that.”
A spokesman for the Learning Trust said: “As a matter of policy we do not comment on cases of this nature. Depending on the terms of the funding agreement between an academy and the secretary of state, the academy may not have to admit a child even if the school is named in the child’s statement.”
The London Oratory case concerns an 11-year-old boy from Croydon. The school declined to be named in his statement, arguing too that it would compromise the “efficient education of other children.”
Chris Barnett, lawyer for the family concerned and head of the education and disability law department at Levenes solicitors, said: “If it hadn’t been an academy, the authority would have named it [in the statement]. Croydon’s position seems to be that it doesn’t accept the arguments the school has put forward, but they still won’t name it. it seems to me that the LA [local authority] doesn’t quite know how to deal with it because it’s an academy.”
A tribunal hearing in the London Oratory case is due next month.
(05-10) 20:25 PDT New Orleans, LA (AP) –
Former President bill Clinton told a group of graduating New Orleans high school students Thursday that the future of the city, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina six years ago, and the country is in their hands.
“Every one of you is going to have choices, choices very often your parents didn’t have,” said Clinton, the keynote speaker at a ceremony recognizing the first graduating class of the New Orleans branch of College Track, a national after-school program that helps students from low-income communities make it to college.
Clinton said he’s here because he loves New Orleans, but mostly, “I’m here because you represent the future of this country.”
And the “power of your example” will be felt in New Orleans, he said. “You’ll not only bring New Orleans back from Katrina, but you’ll take it to new heights.”
Getting a college education is the best way to have options during tough economic times, the national economic crisis and high unemployment rate, he said.
“In the last 12 years we have allowed ourselves — for the first time since the end of World War II — to fall from first to 15th in the world in the percentage of our young people getting degrees from four-year institutions, and it is killing us economically,” he said.
The unemployment rate among people with college degrees is half the rate of people without a degree, Clinton said. The income of people with college degrees is 25 to 30 percent greater than those who don’t have them, he added.
“It’s important to you,” he said.
Earlier, Clinton addressed attendees of CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellular phone industry’s annual trade show, which ended its four-day event in New Orleans.
Before the ceremony, the 37 students met with Clinton, a longtime supporter of the program, which was launched in the San Francisco area more than a decade ago and branched out to New Orleans about five years ago. it has also been introduced in Los Angeles and Aurora, Colo., said College Track co-founder Carlos Watson.
Watson said the program offers students tutoring and guidance in finding summer jobs, volunteer work and extracurricular activities such as writing and music. it also helps them acquire financial aid for college and partners them with mentors and tutors once in college.
Clinton spent time chatting and posing for pictures with the graduates of the Urban League College Track, the New Orleans program whose primary partner is the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, prior to his address.
Candace Gautreaux could hardly contain her excitement as she waited to meet Clinton.
At 20 years old, Gautreaux had a longer and harder road than most to reach graduation. The opportunity to meet a former president was almost more than she could handle.
“I just don’t even know how to put this in words,” she said. “I was supposed to be a statistic.”
After being held back in lower elementary grades, the McDonogh 35 High School student found her footing with help from College Track. She said so many people told her to just quit, drop out and settle for a GED.
Instead, she hung in with help and guidance from the program and now is meeting the former president to boot.
“I always wanted to meet a President, any President. I’m so excited,” Gautreaux said.
Clinton said the future is riding on whether trends involving young people from low-income backgrounds can be reversed “and we lift our young people up.”
“You have to do your part of the lifting, and you will in college,” he said.
“I’m here for a lot of reasons,” Clinton said, pointing out that like many of the graduates, he was the first in his family to go to college. “My life was changed because I got to go.”
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins also attended the event.
Karlton Pannell, who’s graduating from the New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School, introduced Clinton.
“This is once in a lifetime, a real blessing,” said Pannell, who’s graduating from the New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School and is participating in an internship program at LSU’s School of Medicine in New Orleans this summer.
It’s hard to believe college wasn’t even on his radar four years ago despite the fact that three of his sisters were in college.
“My parents struggled. They didn’t graduate from college and didn’t know how to help me,” Pannell said.
“I just didn’t care, and I didn’t take it seriously,” he added. “If it wasn’t for College Track I wouldn’t know all I needed to know to get to this point. it taught me about tuition, financial aid, how to talk to professors.”
Pannell, who will attend Morehouse College in Atlanta in the fall, said the program has also taught him much about himself.
“I was rough, not focused. College Track holds you to certain expectations. I didn’t always do what I was supposed to do. I’m not a perfect student, but now I really feel respected for my effort.”
Jenkins gave some of the students scholarships through his foundation.
Many of the students in the program will be the first in their families to graduate high school or go to college. Program graduates have been accepted to Louisiana State University, Dillard University, St. John’s University, Bard College and elsewhere.
Watson said College Track serves males and females, mostly black and Latino. besides the New Orleans students graduating this year, there are more than 150 others enrolled in the New Orleans program and more than 1,000 in programs in California and Colorado.
“I’m always excited to see the family in the audience, the little brothers and sisters and cousins,” said Watson, who will preside over the New Orleans ceremony. “The effect our graduates will have on these family members, the example they will be for them, that is as important as what we’re doing on stage.”
College Track: www.collegetrack.org/main/
By Richard A. Dickon Belleville parents and school staff showed off some great work from special needs students Monday night. The Special Services Department sponsored a "Dare to Dream" poster contest, where students highlighted the special needs …
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The jaw dropping cover of Time Magazine is Jamie Grumet breast-feeding her nearly 4-year-old son. The controversial cover is stirring up a heated debate.
Local mother of one, Cirissa Bentley is also an advocate for breast-feeding.
“There’s always passing on your immunities to the child and it’s nice because it doesn’t cost anything. It’s all natural,” Cirissa says.
But even to her, the cover is a little extreme.
“4 years old? That a little old for me, I don’t think that I would personally feel comfortable with that.”
The method discussed in the article is attached parenting. Proponents of attachment parenting say it promotes bonding. Children are attached, often in a sling to their parents all day including sleeping in the family bed. They breast feed on demand , said to strengthen their maternal bond.
Covergirl Jamie Grumet says she herself was breast-fed until she was six years old. she says she remembers feeling comforted and nurtured. but for critic, the imagery alone makes them feel uncomfortable.