Hello!

We are building a new website for Yellow House..it will eventually reside at www.yellowhousechildrens.org but for now it lives at:

http://959376729185001214.weebly.com/

feel free to comment or let me know what else I might add. This is where all the volunteer or "visitor" information will be found. We have so many therapists joining us in the next 12 months that I will get up the information as we finalize their plans.

We look forward to welcoming David and Rachel to Vihiga, Isis, Alicia, and Jonathan to Mumias, Karra and Sally Anne to Kilifi and Andrea and Carmen to Mombasa.

Bea x

Our friend, a student at Ohio State and a Nationwide Children's speech therapist is headed to Kenya in April to work as an intern with the United Nations in the refugee camps out near Somalia. We hope she has an incredible life changing experience and look forward to all the insights, stories and the work that she will do. b x

Check out her blog at
http://ukhtfikenya.wordpress.com/

Speech Language Pathology in Kenya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuqQxn_-94

What I mainly want to say about this video is.. this mere 3 minutes of music, text and image took a good 15 hours of my life.

So here's a glimpse in to the SLP work I do. I have a very pediatric community based focus. Also, because I was funded through VSO patients did not have to pay to see me. This means that the work I did looked quite different to that of private practictioners.

Allow me a white girl moment..

‘I live on one plane – it is Africa always for me – I work, sleep,
seek personal encounters, play games, enlarge my general knowledge,
save my strength and money for Africa. Not – I do not pretend this
is entirely a zeal for selfless service, but because I express myself
in work for Africa.’ Margery Perham, 1937

Thank you Eliza for the wonderful quotes. b x

Last night I dreamt one of my high schoolers shot me.

I have started working half a day a week at a high school which people continue to refer to as "urban." This is a completely coded word, which in this case if unpacked means poor, mostly black, and a plethora of other things I have not asked about. Not because I don't want to know, but because the information I get will come in the guise of concern but really reflect more about the teller than the neighborhood. What I will be told will come down to low expectations, a healthy dose of fear mongering and a dab of general unpleasantness. I would rather discover these things as perceived by the youth who live there. Actually I lied, I really don't want to know about the neighborhood, I'd rather know about them.

What I do know however is there is much in the literature about the 'performance of school' and this establishment is a perfect example of what they mean. The halls are quiet, the doors are closed, students are in classrooms. The end. It is possible Wednesday afternoons are just special R & R periods, because I saw some teens watching a video, and I saw many teens sitting in clusters on tables, chairs and windowsills talking to themselves, despite the fact a teacher was present, but apparently busy working at her desk. I even saw some teens on computers. What I didn't see was teaching. One room had a teacher talking to her students. The rest were supervising at best and the students with no books, no pencils, no anything, genuinely appeared to be entertaining themselves. Quiet was the key here. Unspoken message: I don't care what you do, as long as it doesn't involve drugs, weapons or text messaging, but do it quietly.

So, in my dream, one of the girls on my caseload (who has no interest in speech therapy and I don't really blame her) came to my school, busted in and threatened to shoot me (but didn't). We instead had a discussion about accidental gun related deaths in the States. Do you know America has more youth gun related death than the next top 25 industrialized countries in the world combined? That gun related death is the second killer of youth in the country after traffic accidents?

Anyway, then in a second dream a group of boys came to my house and did shoot me while I was making them tea. Not very hospitable really. My response was one of general relief at not having to work towards my phd any more and then I said 'you all really need to stay out of jail, perhaps you should go to Kenya. We'll get my mum to fundraise.' (The American incarceration statistics are crazier than the gun ones)

And so this is why I am up at 5:21 am even though I don't have jet lag.

Not from fear of being shot but because I got thinking about this, seriously thinking about this notion of taking a group of American "urban" youth to Kenya, and perhaps their parents if they wanted who may well be younger than me.

P would say something along the lines of 'great, just what we need in Kenya' and then give me a lecture about being such a bloody white girl. But in a fit of idealism, imagine for a second the layer upon layer of interesting things you could talk about and learn about and read about with a sufficiently interesting reason to do so. A trip! An exchange. People have been doing exchanges for years. Why only the wealthy kids? Arguably kids who have less access to cash need it more. We can fundraise as a group as part of the lead up to the trip.

Yesterday morning I heard a teacher say 'he came to school high this morning, he was sent home and given a 30 day suspension.' Which part of this "punishment" makes sense? I'd love a 30 day suspension right now.. I bet he will sit home every day and repent his sins. Isn't it just permission to have a 30 day pot binge? Now he doesn't even have to bother with that pesky business of getting to school in the morning. How can an administration like this even claim they want to see their high schoolers graduate? what about a bit of community service in a drug rehab centre, or a bit of toilet cleaning duty in a retirement village after school? Have we totally lost our sense of creativity? Kids have grown dull because they don't even need to out smart the adults these days. The adults are mind numbing..

We spend a lot of time in my classes talking about school, race, inequity, literacy, achievement, expectations.. but it has been a long time since I have spent any time in a high school where a lot of these things play out one way or another in real and life impacting ways. It's been researched, it's been written about, we have solutions, there is just no systematic will to enact them. In America, people of European descent control the power structures including the education system and most of these white people are basically afraid to allow for a better education of African Americans, Latinos and minority populations. They are afraid it will mean less for them, less opportunity, less access, less money. These are not even tangible fears for most people. And there is a cost to not educating everyone. The cost is in what the public pays for all those inmates (25% of the world's incarcerated population are in American jails!) and the general insecurity. All these things are well written about, they are the big acknowledged structures the no one is really willing to do anything about, because it might involve effort, discomfort and well.. because there is something good on television tonight.

So I digress.. but back to my idea. Wouldn't that be a really cool experience? A service learning project culminating in a trip? For both the Kenyan and American high schoolers.. I would stay in Columbus to do a project like this. Now.. how to get my dissertation committee to agree to it?

Because there are 1001 ways to support the disability sector in Kenya I am going to post a request for books! Oh those funny old fashioned things. Remember them? Paper, words, sometimes illustrations. I have often dreamed of a month on an island with nothing but a box of good books and a small wooden shack down the beach that sells meals consisting mainly of fresh fish and coconut. A month in a bikini, hat and sun glasses reading books. Delightful.

Anyway these are resource books.. email trixiepujol@msn.com if you are interested in buying books!

NAME OF PROJECT

Improving the Services for Special Education and Rehabilitation in Kenya: Provision of Educational
Resource Materials.

2.0 PROJECT SUMMARY

The ultimate goal of this project is to improve the services for special education and rehabilitation by equipping professionals with resources required to reinforce quality intervention outcomes.

To achieve this goal we will need to establish a resource centre with up-to-date materials including books, magazines, and multimedia materials.

In the current situation, professionals, caregivers and parents lack information, and funds required to equip themselves with resources that improve their skills and abilities. SEP is also currently limited on the available resources at its disposal. There is an urgent need to equip our minimal library with relevant up-to-date materials, which will help develop knowledge and proper skills necessary in working with children with special needs. It will also help to empower parents and guardians on how to get involved with intervention while the children are at home.


3.0 INFORMATION ON THE ORGANISATION

Special Education Professionals (SEP) is a registered non-profitable organisation in Kenya. The members, consisting of Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language therapists, Teachers of Special Education Needs, Teachers of the Deaf, Low-Vision Therapists and Psychologists, are all volunteers who dedicate their free time and expertise to the Kenyan community. SEP operates mainly in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, but also provides assistance to some projects located in other parts of Kenya. The SEP office is located in Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, Muthaiga.

SEP’s Mission Statement

SEP’s mission is to develop a multidisciplinary approach among the professionals working with children with special needs by upgrading the professional skills, standards and knowledge. By doing this SEP will be able to provide quality interventions to more children with special needs and empower their families by including them in the intervention programmes, throughout the country.

SEP started in 1990 and initially operated as a support group for professionals in the field of special education and rehabilitation. These professionals were mainly active in private schools that are frequented by children with more affluent parents who can afford the higher school fees and extra tuition.

In 1998 SEP started ‘community work’ whereby all members volunteered their services and expertise to also help the children belonging to the lower income sections of the society. To date the professionals have created time for the SEP consultations, workshops and project work to help children with special needs including cerebral palsy, autism, Down’s syndrome, learning difficulties, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, mental challenges, developmental delay, communication disorder, hearing impairment, visual impairment amongst other conditions.

SEP has so far assisted 1350 families from different locations in Kenya during the consultations, and over 1000 children in various schools, homes and centres.

So far there have been over 100 workshops facilitated by SEP, which have been attended by approximately 20 parents, caregivers and teachers per workshop.

SEP works closely together with the families, caregivers and teachers as they are the key stakeholders in the education and rehabilitation of the child. Often families and teachers do not have sufficient understanding about special needs. Hence, they are not capable of offering the basic intervention needed to create a better life for their children. SEP believes that training and support empowers the parents, caregivers and teachers to create a positive environment. Capacity building with the families and all stakeholders involved in the upbringing of a child enables the child to maximize his/her potential in all areas of development.

It is a SEP policy to give peer support. SEP encourages sharing knowledge and skills, ideas and techniques amongst all professionals involved.

Activities of the Organisation since 1998

- Training
SEP believes in developing and strengthening the skills, abilities, processes and resources that are a requisite when working with children with special needs. SEP therefore organizes regular workshops on specific topics and therapy interventions related to the different needs; targeting parents, teachers and caregivers.

SEP organizes multidisciplinary training services which target all the professional Therapists and Special Needs Teachers within the organization, with the aim of improving their knowledge, skills and abilities, emphasizing equal partnership with the parents, and building on a child- centered approach.

- Capacity Building in Institutions and Community Groups
SEP provides furniture and therapy equipment, using locally available materials. Educational materials and toys are made in active participation with those involved in the daily interaction with the children. These educational materials and toys are made from affordable and recycled materials whenever possible and adapted to the specific needs of the children.

On request visits to schools, children homes and centres are organized to offer technical assistance to the teachers and caregivers, and to monitor implementation of the learned skills.

- Early Intervention Consultations
SEP organises Early Intervention Consultations. SEP advocates supporting families in caring for their children, therefore during the consultations, parents or caregivers receive information that helps them to better understand the condition of their child, and they obtain advice on how to deal with the challenges at home.

- Creating Awareness
SEP has also been involved in creating awareness on specific conditions and has so far published and widely distributed 7 brochures in both English and Kiswahili (Introducing SEP, Down Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Communication Disorder, Stammering, and Learning Difficulties).

Awareness campaigns on different topics are also arranged through the use of local media and presentations during public events in liaison with other stakeholders.


4.0 PROJECT PROPOSAL

SEP’s policy has been to offer help and support whenever professionals, families, schools, homes and organizations need assistance within the area of special education and rehabilitation.

SEP recruits professionals with training in one area of special needs who are then given further training in paediatric skills with a multidisciplinary approach. This therefore means the need for a variety in professional resources that are accessible to the professionals. This would create a great opportunity for professionals to deepen their knowledge and improve their skills consequently a better approach towards the children.

During the SEP Early Intervention Consultations and Capacity Building in Institutions and Special Needs Groups, we come across a wide variety of conditions and therefore also require a lot of information to be able to handle effectively the conditions.


Assistance with Books

Since SEP functions as a resource centre it would be very useful to expand the library. SEP has a number of videos on different conditions; and a limited number of books and magazines. However, there are a number of standard resource books, and more recent books on conditions, teaching programmes, therapy techniques and toy making available on the market. These are mandatory for an organization working with a multidisciplinary team and dealing with a variety of conditions in children. Acquiring them would be a great asset to our resource centre.

Books are normally very expensive and often not available in Kenya and we would therefore have to order them via Amazon.com

REQUESTED TITLES:

* Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Parents Guide
* The Out of Sync Child
* The Out of Sync Child has Fun
* OT for Children with Special Needs
* How to Set up a Classroom for Students with Autism
* How to Set up a Work Area at Home for a Child with Autism
* Helping Children with Autism Learn
* Social Skills Activities for Special Children
* Life Skills Activities for Special Children
* Siblings of Children with Autism
* Emergence: Labelled Autistic
* Facing Autism
* The Complete IEP Guide: How to Advocate for your Special Ed Child
* Thinking in Pictures and other Reports
* This is Asperger Syndrome
* Classroom Success for LD and ADHD Child
* Epilepsy and the Family: A New Guide
* When Your Child Has a Disability
* Bonding While Learning: Activities to grow your Relationship while Preparing for Reading Success
* Look Who’s Talking
* The New Language of Toys: Teaching Communication Skills to Children with Special Needs: A guide for Parents and Teachers
* Childhood Motor Speech Disability
* Children with Visual Impairments: Social Interaction, Language and Learning
Seeing Clearly
* The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to your Adoptive Family
* Chicken Soup for the Soul
* A Parents and Teachers Guide to the Special Needs Child
* Paediatric Massage Revised for Children with Special Needs
* A Parent’s Guide to Developmental Delays: Recognising and Coping with Missed Milestones in Speech, Movement, Learning and Other Areas

If you would like additional information and clarification on any matter related to this proposal, please do not hesitate to contact us on:

Special Education Professionals
C/o Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital
P.O. Box 42325, Nairobi 00100.
Tel. (02) 7206000 ext. 322
Mobile: 0733-267869

Your investment in these matters will go along way in supporting the lives of the special child in Kenya.

Speech Language Pathologist wanted in St. Lucia

 We are a small child development centre in Castries, St Lucia that provides developmental assessments and therapy services to the island’s population. We are looking for a speech and language pathologist to provide assessment and therapy programmes for a range of children including learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, speech and language delays and disorders. You will be working alongside a paediatrician, psychologist, speech and language therapist and occupational therapist. You will be expected to offer individual assessment and therapy sessions and joint therapy sessions with our occupational therapist. There are opportunities to carry out visits to five of our special schools. We would prefer if you can offer between 3 and 6 months, from May onwards.

The island has much to offer including beautiful beaches, the world-famous Pitons, and a range of other tourist attractions.

For more information please contact Dr Kim Gardner (Paediatrician) at drkimgardner@gmail.com or

Claire Leadbeater (Speech & Language Therapist) at cleadbeat@hotmail.com

Silvia

A request from Lisa Fisher lisa.fisher83@gmail.com



"Silvia is seven years old, who at the age of ten months was severely burnt when the mosquito net around her cot caught fire while she was sleeping. Silvia underwent 2 operations to amputate her left arm and foot, however her family ran out of money and could not afford any further treatment. Her right foot is badly deformed and she also has abdominal and facial burns.
Due to this accident, Silvia has never been able to walk, go to the toilet unaided, go to school nor has she been able to run around with her friends and siblings. Silvia was kept hidden inside her hut for 5 years as the stigma attached to a person with such a disability meant great shame to her family and the village she lives in.

I met Silvia during a clinical day at the centre I was based at. Silvia was brought into the clinic by her village sub-chief. I saw that Silvia had a great spirit and such hope and vitality for life. I wanted to help. I wanted to give her an opportunity at a full life.
Whilst I was still in Africa, I contacted a couple, Janet and Frank Scaysbrook. This couple was the host family for Safari Kimanzi. Safari also had severe burns as a child and received medical intervention from the RPA (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital), Sydney. Janet and Frank flew to Silvia's village and made a short documentary about her injuries in June 2010. They then made contact with Channel 9’s RPA show regarding Silvia’s plight. Doctor Phillip Rome a plastic surgeon from the RPA heard of Silvia's story and has come forward and offered to do the corrective surgery pro bono to enable Silvia to walk for the first time. The surgery is scheduled to take place in May 2011. It will be aired on channel 9's RPA show soon after."
If you think you can help any way, please let me know. If you want to help financially you can transfer money into the following account:

Account Name: Support in LIfe Via Individual Action (SILVIA inc)
BSB: 633 000
Account No: 141975094
If you want to send a cheque please make it out to SILVIA inc. and send it to PO box 490, Margate Beach QLD 4019.

We are still looking for $14,000
Thank you all for your patience with this, I know you have been inundated with requests on email and facebook (not to mention other charities requests)... i just can't give up though.
I have my fingers crossed.
Love Lisa :)

Please come to our party... to raise money for Mombasa Children's Therapy Center

Cocktails for a Cause

Saturday April 9th, 2011

7pm til late

Mars Gallery

http://www.marsgallery.com/

Chicago, IL

Give Globally, Eat & Drink Locally

$50 per person, please pay online in advance

http://www.yellowhousechildrens.org/

make a note that it's for fundraiser ticket in the seller notes section

tickets include cocktails by Death Door Spirits & hors d'oeuvres

“the act of writing itself involves us in a quest”

Ely, Vinz, Downing & Anzul, 1997

There is a new publication out called S & L World http://www.slworldbulletin.com/

and what I realized yesterday is.. I would so much rather be writing informal articles for this kind of publication than writing papers for my university program. Alas. Today I am home ill and going to try and clear through this haze in my brain to work on some academic pursuits - a manuscript about speech therapy in Africa that I whave been working on for over a year now.

Writing is underemphasized in speech therapy programs. Yet, writing is an important method of communication. Writing is a public conversation. A story, a message. For me, I write to make sense of the world. I believe in the process.. But more importantly there are so many wonderful speech therapy related programs all over the world taking a myriad of forms that are appropriate for their setting. I think we need more of those stories, that may not come with references and may not be evidence based practice but nonetheless provide parents with hope, children with words and communities with education. I think we need these stories to inspire young therapists about what is possible, and help therapists working in places with limited support and resources think about alternative service delivery methods. I think we need these stories so we can get clinical feedback.  

So today I am forcing myself to sit and write. Its my second day in a row in my pyjamas at the kitchen table, trying to evacuate the fog with coffee, shun the internal cold with porridge, stewed fruit and much later soup. b x

A hands on
Alternative Augmentative Communication workshop

with Joanne Fry

February 8,9,10 and 11th

At Association for the Physically Disabled Kenya, Bombolulu workshops
Mombasa, Kenya

Educators, speech language therapists and related professionals who currently work with non verbal and minimally verbal children are encouraged to attend

If you are interested in joining us please email me at: beastaley@gmail.com

Speech and langauge therapy in Uganda

Kenya Update 

The only time I am ever up at 5:30 am is when I have jet lag. I arrived home from Kenya last night and this morning I have found myself wide awake since 3 am which will be fine until my 5:30 pm class tonight! I thought I would write to update about the things going on in Kenya while it is all fresh in my mind.

I had a lovely two weeks on the coast. Mombasa was a frenzy of activity in the week leading up to Christmas. I have never seen the streets or markets so packed with people. The evenings, were a hot chaos of noise and light, the vendors were still beside the street with their tables and small kerosene candles at 9pm, with people were milling around and spilling out of small dukas and hotelis.

Mombasa was hot. Not as hot as I know it will get next month and the month after but all the same sweaty, humid hot. I took a sun dress which was lined and couldn't bring myself to wear it. the lining just seemed like too much material in the heat. Of course I managed to get horribly sunburned despite my slathering of 55+ lotion.

As for Mombasa Children's Therapy Center.. I arrived to the news that our wonderful space now had a 'no occupancy' court order on it. We began the relationship with our landlord in August but our lease was actually signed in November.. oh. about a month after the landlord fired their agent, but after their agent had already signed the lease to someone else. The other tenant is suing for access. All our lovely refurbishments have been for nothing. Alex our business manager wants to wait until the court heard the situation out, but as far as I was concerned the agent and tenant are suing the landlord (the church) directly and we should count our loses and find somewhere else as this process could take months. The church agreed in a meeting to reimburse us our deposit and costs by January 20th.. fingers crossed. Alex was devastated by the situation. The bigger problem is that Alex and the landlord/the men on the church board are all good people, but not business people. The church surely knew about the other tenant long before we were informed but liked Alex, wanted Alex in the space and just hoped the other tenant would go away. In fact, they said to the other tenant "I don't know why you want this space, why don't you find somewhere else." We didn't go through the agent so the agent now has a bone to pick and the tenant apparently feels obstreperous because the church tried to talk him out of the place.

On a brighter note, Martin from Mumias Education Assessment Resource Centre (EARC) and Wellington from Vihiga EARC came to visit us in Mombasa giving us the chance to have lots of lengthy conversations about community work, models of care, thinking about the way forward as well as catching up socially.

Wellington and I eating sweet potato by the waterfront on Mama Ngina drive, Mombasa

 Martin & I, Indian Ocean view

Martin Nafukho (Occupational Therapist, Mumias EARC), Wellington Manyola (Vihiga EARC),

Dorothy Mvoi (Mombasa EARC)

Martin's EARC team under the leadership of Martha Odhiambo are always managing to get what they need from the district education office. Martha needs to run a course on 'how to build relationships and get your way with district officials'. Their district office actually pays their electricity bill amongst other things, a novel idea! Martin is requesting speech therapy (SLP) volunteers for 2012.. I thought it was time to give these staff at Mumias EARC a break from all the visitors they have been hosting but Martin disagrees. As he pointed out, now they have had speech therapy coverage for the last 18 months people in the community actually seek out and expect access to speech and language services. Potentially we (Yellow House) could look to hire one of the new Uganda SLP graduates to cover both Mumias and Vihiga.   

Wellington, bless him, spent the whole of last year being threatened by his (now) EARC coordinator because he applied for the post of coordinator and she wanted it. Rather than do anything about the death threats she was sending him, the district decided perhaps they should relocate Wellington to another district which he successfully fought. Vihiga EARC has lived under the tyranny of a a coordinator who the community openly acknowledged embezzled all their funding and publicly drank it away, so this new delight of a woman in the leadership position is pretty much par for the course.

DESPITE THIS, Wellington managed to secure a massive Safaricom grant to rehabilitate the parent teacher resource center and cerebral palsy center which is now complete. We have windows, we have an asbestos free roof and we have a huge space for training and building up a library. Wellington still needs money to paint the outside of the building and we are working on money for furnishings but the building looks amazing! Safaricom have also promised Wellington a training grant for several workshops in 2011 and if he succeeds in implementing the grant has been asked to submit a grant in 2012 for a vehicle to expedite their community work. I am so impressed and awed by his dedication. All the money for these projects skirts district and EARC bank accounts ensuring it is being used as designated. It's amazing. I just don't know that I would have the energy to do all he does, and still have to put up with all the bullshit politics that steal the credit for any success and yet actively hamper progress with petty demands and threats. 

We are looking to a great year in Vihiga however. Thanks to the ongoing support of the Rays we have money for Wellington's program which includes distributing epilepsy drugs, doing community outreach, educating parents, assessing children, supporting teachers and in 2012 will also be increasing occupational therapy service provision through Yellow House and start some new projects that include a large community garden (Have you seen the Edible Garden by Alice Waters? This is my fantasy for all our projects).   

So there is the quick and dirty update. Collectively, Martin, Wellington, Dorothy and other wonderful special educators and therapists have ensured service provision for so so many children again this year. It is a pleasure to be able to support them in what they do.

Happy New Year.. b x

Happy Holidays to everyone..

(these are the secondary school students from the School for the Deaf in Kilifi).

Thank you for all the support buying/selling aprons and bags...

and stay tuned for our fundraiser in Chicago, April 2011. 

 While Mombasa Children's Therapy Centre is still waiting on its license, we are looking forward to having two volunteers Jen and Karen to help with assessments and therapy plans in Mombasa this December.  b x

A Reader, the Empowered Leader

THE 7TH PAN-AFRICAN READING FOR ALL CONFERENCE

Gaborone, Botswana

 11th – 14th July 2011

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS [Deadline Dec 31, 2010]

For an application go to: http://6thpanafricanrfa.blogspot.com/

Organised by 
Reading Association of Botswana (RAB) 
International Development Committee - Africa (IDC-A) 
International Reading Association (IRA)

Stammering Workshop for Teachers

(Supporting Children who Stammer at School)

Are you a teacher?

Do you come across children/students who stammer?

Please come to this workshop at

NAIROBI HOSPITAL Annex

Date: - Thursday 18th November - 6-7:30PM (PROMPT)

 
 
The Workshop covers the following:


 Basic Information on Stammering/stuttering

 How to help children manage in classroom situations when they stammer/stutter

The workshop will be attended by the Stammering Support Group and qualified Speech and Language Therapists.
Any enquiries please contact/text Emma Shah; 0722 718 557 or email Steve at skmwenda@yahoo.com
COST:- 100 ksh

For the last 10+ years, the tiny community of speech language therapists (SLT) in Kenya have been pushing for a SLT training course. Discussions about need and complications with institutional partnership have stymied our efforts. This summer however, the questions I was getting from teachers made me wonder if perhaps we weren't jumping the gun a bit. I began to wonder if, as a profession, anyone actually knows what it is that we do..

So, in Isiolo the other week as I waited for the group of special educators to assemble for day 2 of 'Speech and Language Skills for Functional Communication' training, I put several question on the board about speech therapy. Nine people gave me their answers (each number represents a respondent).

What is a speech therapist?
1. He is a specialist who helps learners with speech problems
2. Speech therapist is a specialist who trains those with speech difficulties to overcome their speech problems through speech training, exercises etc
3. speech therapist is a specially trained person who trains people with speech problems to have one
4. A person who assists a learner to acquire language techniques in the right manner
5. Are professionals trained to assist with speech disorders
6. Is a qualified person who helps children with speech challenges (problems). He/she also identifies them
7. left blank
8. these are professionals who are trained to assist persons with speech problems
9. A person who is in charge (Change?) of children with special need e.g. deaf, stammerers making speech or describe, write or understand

What do they do?
1. Help learners with speech problems
2. They train those with speech problems how to vocalize, articulation and fluency
3. they give massage, physio therapy exercises to those with speech problems
4. They help learners to produce correct sounds when reading or speaking hence pronounce syllables correctly
5. They train the individuals to say or practice saying words after him/her
6. They train those children with speech problems
7. left blank
8. they correct speech disorders
9. they assist children with special needs either through exercises or if there is a need for medical assistance. Helps in making practice in either achieve pronouncing of putting up words

Describe speech therapy…
1. left blank
2. It’s a therapy given to those with speech problems
3. speech therapy involves checking all the organs of speech to find out if they are functional
4. In speech therapy you guide the learner to articulate sounds in their correct positions and help them to produce different sounds without the mother tongue interference of given sounds
5. Is an exercise which is carried out during training or practice
6. Speech therapy is the cure of speech problems
7. left blank
8. this is a process that involves assisting persons with speech disorders e.g. start teaching single letters, words and then sentences
9. a stammerer can be, a deaf, slow learner, mentally handicapped, any person/child who is not able to verbal or understand

Who do speech therapists work with?
1. teachers
2. They work with ENTs
3. They work with ENT specialists, OT’s and PT’s
4. It’s done with the help of a teacher or parent of the affected learner or person
5. trained personnel, doctors, volunteers
6. The health institutions and parents of the children with problems
7. left blank
8. they work with health workers, social workers and teachers
9. caretakers- e.g. parents, teachers and children or persons with certain disabilities

No one said children! Of all these teachers, no one thinks we actually work with kids!

Does Kenya need speech therapists?
1. yes
2. Kenya does need speech therapists as there are many children/people who have speech difficulties especially deaf, autistic, mentally handicapped and multiply handicapped
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. yes it does
9. by all means possible

How will Kenya meet that need?
1.education
2. By training teachers through workshops, by training speech therapists by establishing institution where personnel were trained
3. By training more professionals in that area
4. By training more speech therapists and enabling more teachers to acquire the knowledge of speech therapists
5. Training of professionals, through induction courses, seminars/workshops
6. By giving training
7. They training and workshops
8. by training some professionals of speech therapy
9. by training children’s caretakers e.g. teachers though workshops. At least if possible every term teachers attend speech and language skills for functional communication seminars.

Interesting huh? I realised when I read through these responses that I myself have spent the last several years modelling that a speech therapist is a person who travels about the country training people. I train teachers, occupational therapists and parents, but rarely rarely work directly with children. When I do, it tends to be in a hospital context rather than in the classroom.

The take home message from all this is we need to increase awareness about what we do in an explicit way. I will start all my trainings with an activity that asks participants to consider the profession and scope of practice! b x

Hello from Kenya..

Lots of exciting things happening, but very little time online to report. However... our website http://www.yellowhousechildrens.org/ should be up in running within months. Hooray.

I'm please to report that we anticipate the Mombasa Children's Therapy Center opening sometime between now and January and we are about to be in a whirl of fundraising to make this actually happen.

b x

As my school year wraps up, and after months of indecisiveness about my summer, I am officially going to Kenya for the better part of four months. When the panic caused by my end of quarter deadlines recedes, underneath there is just plain excitement. I am looking forward to being in a new space, to using my Ki Swahili and for the hot and dusty roads I will travel.

I have decided to blog this summer because I have to write papers (graduating mid 2013 is the goal!) and this form of reflective writing is a nice compliment to a more academic style of writing. As I have been told, it is through writing that educators and social scientists construct knowledge and meaning and make sense of experiences. It is through writing and processing that I become the learner rather than the teacher. So write I will.

My position in Kenya throughout 2007 & 2008 was on the Children with Disabilities Empowerment Project and I will return on the tail end of next phase which was funded by DFID and ends September 4th. The new and snappy acronym for the project fails to come to me at this time. The major difference in the two projects was a change in targeted districts and an increase in speech therapy service provision so that three speech therapists were covering the project area (one in Western Kenya, one in Nairobi and one in Eastern Kenya). I am picking up the Eastern Kenyan portion of the project which means I get to spend time working out of the rather heavenly Kilifi on the coast.

Having spent the past year thinking about pedagogy and diversity, equality and literacy, having the opportunity to go back to Kenya is also a chance to consider the systems and practices the CDEP project was attempting to support. As I pack my skirts, and select my books for the trip, I am thankful for the opportunity to revisit the learning experiences gifted to me by my colleagues. Here's to all that this summer will bring...  

Yellow House Children's Services has finally finally finally become a something!

So at this point, before I go onto update.. I need to say

Thanks so much to Patrick Moran for all his wonderful advice and wisdom and general commensensedness. Also for registering us as a non for profit.
Thanks to Meabh Friel for her work on our fabulous logo which we are in the process of finalizing.
Thanks to Matt Belcher for patiently explaining about websites, domain names and servers which we are also in the process of sorting out.
Thanks to Thomas and Mel Staley for their generous donation and Laura Voight for raising over $2000
Thanks to Jamie Kinder and Abbie Olszewski for agreeing to be on the advisory board and their hours and hours of listening, reading and giving sound advice.

So what are we doing?
In Mombasa - Dorothy Mvoi, (who will direct and run the Yellow House Children's Clinic) and Kennedy Otsola have filed the paper work to register Yellow House in Kenya and open a bank account (exceedingly complicated and lengthy bureaucratic processes) as well as gather a team so that we are in a position to rent a clinic space.

The clinic will serve as a day care/preschool for children with special needs so their parents can go to work. In addition we hope to provide speech therapy services to these children as well as out patients using volunteer as well as local therapists. We also intend to hire a part time occupational therapist.

In Vihiga - under the wonderful guidance of Wellington Manyola, the Yellow House Parent Teacher Resource Center has been registered and the team appear to have secured the costs of rehabilitating the building. Yellow House will provide funds to furnish and support operations of this community center which we envision to become a multi-purpose learning space. Once again the focus is helping the families and educators of children with special needs better support the children in their lives.

The Vihiga and Mombasa projects have come from the ideas and passion of both Dorothy and Wellington, and will continue to be directed under their vision and leadership. It is amazing to get to work with such dedicated people.

We will be doing fundraising events in Columbus, New York and Chicago in 2010 so that Dorothy and Wellington have the opportunity to bring their community centers to life. thank you thank you in advance for all your support.  

Bea x