As many of you know one of my biggest passion areas is Training Nationals. It is truly the only way that therapy will be sustainable in the country of Haiti is if we train the nationals to do it. My second round of students this year were Dorgile and Monise. Their fieldwork time was very different from my first set of students mainly because 4 of their 11 weeks were spent on the road as we partnered with Phoenix Rising and STAND. They were also present during the BIG TRANSITION of outreach through adding 100 more kids from the waiting list.
1 thing I know for sure is that they saw ALOT, learned ALOT, and they worked hard.
PHOENIX RISING
This is a team that comes in to PdP and provides PT, orthopedic, and prosthetic services for free to the community a few times a year. We ran a pediatric clinic seeing many of the outreach families to evaluate to categorize in order to prepare for the new outreach program. We also made hand splints for some adult stroke patients that showed up. This was a very busy 2 weeks. I was so busy I didn't take many pictures.
CASTING EDUCATION & PRACTICE
One of the special education I did with them was on casting and CIMT therapy. Also educated on club foot casting techniques.
OTHER EDUCATION.....
~STRETCHING, MASSAGE, THERAPY BRUSHING
~THERAPY BALL TRAINING
~ SENSORY INTEGRATION TRAINING
~YOGA and THERABAND TRAINING
~NDT TRAINING
~HANDWRITING and FINE MOTOR TRAINING
~VISUAL-MOTOR, VISUAL-PERCEPTION TRAINING
~
OUTREACH THERAPY
everyday from 1-3 was outreach. They got the chance to work with a variety of kids and provide 1:1 therapy. They also spent time educating the families.
Therapy with the Miriam Center Kids
Most everyday was spend doing therapy with the Miriam Center kiddos. During these time I would also do education with them as they were working with a kid. One of the nice things about placements at the Miriam Center is the you get hand on practice with so many different populations of kids. The kids LOVED working with Monise and Dorgile.
EDUCATION ON BUILDING or ADAPTING EQUIPMENT
They had a chance to build a variety of equipment from PVC pipe walkers and standers to Haitian adapted ducktape chairs, bed positioners, to kneelers, etc. They also learned to fix and adapt wheelchairs as we received a shipment of some wheelchairs and we had to adapt them and fit them for some of the kids at the Miriam Center.
STAND
STAND is another therapy group that comes into PdP and provides PT, orthopedic and Prosthetic services for free to the community a few times per year. During these 2 weeks we saw over 100 patients. We evaluated each, fit for AFO's and shoes, made adaptive equipment for each as needed.
OUTREACH HOMEVISITS
Every Friday afternoon is reserved for home visits. This is when we hike the mountains to go visit the families at their homes. Sadly with being on the road so much and due to rain we did not get to do too many home visits but we did get to do a few. Below are pictures of 1 day when we climbed 2 hours straight up the mountain to visit Woodkervins and Moliner. It was a beautiful hike.
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Their local church |
FUN TIMES
While they were at the Miriam Center they got to do a few fun things like taking the kids to the beach and also going over the island of Tortue to go caving.
SAYING GOODBYE
It is never easy to leave after you spend 11 weeks building relationships and working so hard with the kids. We had a little go away party and a time to say thank you for their hard work!
It was so great having both of them at the Miriam Center for 11 weeks!!!
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