Over the past week I have finally begun to settle into a pattern and routine for what I will be doing during my time here with CCD. I've begun to develop a few ideas of what I can do with my knowledge of speech therapy and finally seen what a real week for me would be like (even though this past week was only three days).
Of all the places that I will be working at while I am here, I have spent the most time at Fueng Fah Babies home. The children here range in age from about 3 to 7 years old and they all have a range of disabilities. The CCD day care centre here takes about 12 children from the ward each morning and they all go to the day centre. The morning starts with music and the staff and volunteers sing some songs which the children use what ever musical instrument to play along. Following that we usually have snacks and then it is shower time.
After showers the Thai staff just let the kids play and do whatever they want. This is usually when the volunteers will organise an activity and get them to do something a bit more structured. Unfortunately the days I was there this week, I was the only volunteer there and I hadn't been there with all the kids much at all so I wasn't really sure what I could get them to do or even what I could do. On Friday I did take some of them into the sensory room but even then it wasn't a real structured activity to do. Hopefully I will be able to work with the other volunteers to set up some more activities for them during the time that I am here.
After lunch is usually free play outside. A few children go back to the ward before lunch and a few others come join us while we are playing outside. Again it would be really nice if we could set up some more structured activities when playing outside as well.
From a speech therapy perspective I have noticed that many of the children that go to the daycare don't speak at all. Some may have a few words and they understand a lot of what is being said to them but they don't really speak. Even some of the boys who are about 7 years old do not have many words at all. So I think I have found a project for me in Fueng Fah. I hope to look at setting up some sort of communication boards for these children and then also teaching them to use it. At the moment I don't know who I will be teaching or even how or what but it is the beginning of an idea. I also think that I will be able to help out a bit with some of their feeding. Lots of them cant manage drinking out of the cups that they use at the day centre and i have a feeling some of them might not be managing their food very well so that is also somewhere that I can use my knowledge as well.
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