Of Therapists, Teachers and Sharing the Love of our Children

Written by Leslie Wan

Our school was recently blessed with a visit from three therapists (occupational and speech) who came via an organization called Therapy Missions. Therapy Missions folks travel across the world and share their knowledge and expertise in teaching schools, orphanages etc., new or expanding methods of reaching and engaging persons with disabilities and challenges. It was wonderful to have them with us, and they spent time working with different children, instructing our staff and also meeting with some of our children's parents to give them pointers and thoughts on how to benefit and propel their children forward.  I might add that each of our visitors financed their visit with their OWN money, on their OWN vacation from their jobs in the states. Thus for them, it becomes a true mission of compassion, instruction, sharing, and, with personal sacrifices for the love of our children.  

  

I enjoyed watching them and listening to them in their discussions with the children and parents and noted the ways they found to engage our children. I spent some time talking to them individually and in a  group about their thoughts on the school and the children we /they serve, and a little about how it compares with the jobs and folks they work with back home. Randy Fedoruk, Lourdes Hawkins, and Stacey Lehrer are bright and dedicated professionals who enjoyed their  time here as much as we enjoyed having them.  They were not phased a bit as they were smeared with cornmeal mush during sensory touch time, and  still worked tirelessly to assess and make connections with students in new and  creative ways.  Their enthusiasm for their occupation and assisting with children was very infectious. God bless them!

Randy

Lourdes

Stacey

Here are some take away thoughts from them on their time with us. In the interest of space, I am combining them into one, but rest assured they added to each other's answers in a way I found quite cooperative, communal minded and delightful. 

About our students and their time at the school.............

They found the children adorable and were surprised at how many strengths the children had despite their challenges.  They were amazed at how in tune each of our teachers were to each of the children and their individual challenges and capabilities, and that teachers individually engaged them at the level they were at and in the manner the child relates best to. While they were here to do some "teaching to the teachers" in new and creative engagement, they felt they had equally learned from our teachers in ways to assist in a less tech savvy and particularly resourceful ways.  All three  really enjoyed meeting with the children's parents and found them  open to suggestions of new ways to make breakthroughs and connections with their children. In some cases they had to be particularly firm with parents on being consistent and forthright with their children, which is hard to do when as a parent your time is limited and your resources even more limited.  But parents agreed, and promised to be more consistent because they know it is in their child's best interest. They felt the school was phenomenal and they saw so much opportunity for it to grow bigger and stronger if given more resources. Welcoming was how they described the school, it's people and the folks they had met in all the other journeys they took across Kingston.  Each volunteer comes from a location with far better resources, tech savvy and otherwise, but  were clearly amazed that our school does so much with so little and have found so many ways to stimulate, engage, amuse and motivate our kids with so much less. Across the board they enjoyed it immensely.  

Important resources lacking

Lamenting by their team that much was needed in basic but important equipment for the kids, they had hopes that this could somehow be accomplished some day. Acknowledging that children grow, children come and go at various sizes and ages, and nothing about education and it's children is static, it was noted that so much was needed at the school to physically position the children into learning postures. Specifically mentioned were more size appropriate chairs with attached lap trays (and safety strapped) chairs that have equipment that would hold a head in an upright and front focused position, as well as size consistent wheel chairs. Many of our children have little personal neck control, and helpful would be the school chair that would hold the head in a position to actually see the story being read, or the task to be focused on.  Ah yes but then there is the reality of finding the extra funding that is hard to get sometimes. I sighed and said that disability ready chairs and tables were on our wish list and we acknowledged that it takes proper positioning of the head and body for children to allow them be able to SEE and participate in what we want to teach. So there we go, outside professionals acknowledging our overriding and long standing wish list items.. Each showed us wonderful new and exciting things that could be done with more technology like Ipad learning, and very specific methods of the order in which you combine methods of communication and teaching between technology and standard communication methods. Yep order of methodology is important as you might imagine.

All I do is approach them and their smiles are rejoicing. Happy Place..

OUR TAKE AWAYS 
Besides the obvious learning and sharing that took place having the folks here, what did we take away from their week here? Our teachers, parents and staff, all got reminded of their important and determined roles in the lives of these children. This visit empowered them to empower our children and re-invigorated our parents and teachers. We learned that we are creative and resourceful despite our limited resources. They reminded us why we care so much and emphasized how our children have so many capabilities despite their limitations. They saw the spark in our students and the devotion that comes from being a teacher and facilitator to our students and any students in schools like ours. It is wonderful to have some fresh faces celebrate our students, and to for them to have brought energy and dynamic learning to us in so many ways. And that is but a fraction.....

Lourdes teaches Hillary new tricks...

Randy and the drum- sound, movement, strength training

                    









THANK YOU to Therapy Missions for organizing the opportunity for them to come here. 

We THANK Randy Fedoruk, Stacey Lehrer, and Lourdes Hawkins for their energy, their commitment, their time and their willingness to share and care with us, and in turn we hope to be able to share it to the wider Jamaican special needs community. As always our mission at the school is to share knowledge with the wider Jamaican community for the benefit of other challenged youngsters and their teachers. 

We welcome these folks back anytime or any Therapy Missions because as we have always said, once you find us, you never leave us. This blog has become so many things, but thanking folks and sharing blessings is certainly two of them. Big clap for these dedicated folks and Mission Therapies. Big clap to our children and staff who made them feel at home and appreciated.

Our Movie Fundraiser - BIG THANK YOU 

Last week we had a fundraiser for the school which was a movie premiere night. We say special thanks to people who supported us. Thanks to everyone who purchased tickets in support of our school and our children. Well attended and even more appreciated by us. Thank you to "Uncorked" (and Debra Valentine) for supplying some lovely wine on the evening as we waited for the movie to begin. If you haven't been to Uncorked in Barbican, try it..........Yummy things there to eat and drink. Thank you to Catherine's Peak who supplied us with bottled water on the evening. Staying hydrated is always important in Jamrock! Both of these companies have been so good to us and we never take it for granted!

Thank you to so many at the movie and last week who told us how much they have enjoyed the blog and that it is making an impact in many ways and giving a voice to the sometimes voiceless ones at our school and beyond. It is about us: it is for you and that makes it about "WE".

OUR
OUR FINAL THOUGHTS ARE FOR YOU!

You are tired of saying the same thing. Are they ever really listening? Why am I never getting through to the folks I need to understand me. SURE YOU WILL!

Change the way you give the message. Be open to what the feedback is. Be confident, but respectful and remember that those getting your message will hear you if you speak their language! 

Be grateful you can use words and remember everyone can learn a lesson if you speak it in a way they can receive it.............

Just saying from a school that "speaks" in many many ways....  
  

  

          



              

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS - CHANGING LIVES....

                              (photo courtesy of photographer Cynthia Stroo)  

This post is contributed by a fellow writer and devoted friend of STEP Centre, Jamie Wrench. Jamie's post serves as a reminder that chance encounters can transform you and that once you find STEP Centre( and our children) you stay with us in the best way possible, and in the best place possible, your heart.

In honor of Jamie's post, our photos are photos of our joy across the years.  Thanks Jamie, for your devotion and your post.....  

                             Blog formatted by Leslie Wan
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In Jamie's Word..........

In the beginning was the washroom, and the washroom was on a campsite, and the camp site was on a tiny island off the south - west tip of England; and it was there, early one morning, as my wife Jane began the day, that she met Jane Peacock, who was cleaning the washroom; and they got talking…

Jane was a young graduate from England who had gone to Jamaica (despite the advice of the authorities, who thought it was too dangerous at the time) to work as a volunteer at the STEP Centre in St Margaret’s Church Hall in Liguanea.  At the end of her year she had returned home to St Agnes, one of the Isles of Scilly (the first you see of UK when you travel from America), and was working as hard as she could to raise enough money to get back to Jamaica; serving in the pub, valeting the holiday chalets, cleaning the toilets on the camp site, bending the ear of anyone who would listen about this little school for special children in Kingston that had love, laughter and… NOTHING.

Memories of yesteryear and the old school 

JAMAICA DAYS      

My Quaker meeting decided to send a donation of £400 to STEP.  We didn't know it at the time, but it was the first external donation STEP Centre had ever received, and it was used to sponsor Renee, a child who otherwise would not have been able to attend.  As the years went by, some really extraordinary things happened.  One of my friends was a ballet examiner and would you believe it, was sent out to Kingston to examine ballet students, among them the daughter of the founder of the STEP Centre, Ann Chong.  She and her husband visited STEP, met Renee and everyone else, and were just bowled over.  I wrote about it in 1999, and people sent money to my Quaker Meeting.  So I wrote a bit more – and they sent more money.  Then another of my friends said she’d like to go and do something useful before she settled down and had babies, and as it was too difficult for her to go to Kosovo, so we sent her to Jamaica, and she introduced not just STEP but all Jamaica to Music Therapy.  And she wrote about that, and people sent money. I ended up coming out, and writing about that, and people sent more money.  You just tell the story, and people respond.

In 1999 I wrote these words:

“…we shall go on supporting Renee for as long as we can, not because she is the most deserving child in the world, not because we feel Jamaica is the most needy country, Kingston the most deserving town or the STEP Centre the most worthy institution that exists.  It is simply that as a result of an extraordinary series of chances we have become inextricably linked…”

It takes a team...

…And here we are, twenty years later, still in touch, still inextricably linked.  What are the chances of that happening?  It is almost unbelievable that STEP survived; more remarkable still that it has prospered.  Even more unbelievably, I've been to see you – twice –and we’re still collecting the odd pound or two to convert to Jamaican to keep you lovely people in paint, or sparkly things, or feely stuff, or Marmite.

Easter Hat Parade

It’s almost exactly eleven years since I first visited.  I’d never been across the Atlantic before, and the first thing that struck me (after the applause when the plane landed) was the heat.  I was to learn that it was a cold, cold, cold month apparently, but let me tell you for me it was hot hot hot!

The second thing that struck me was a child named Monique.  She took charge of me straight away.  I had brought a suitcase full of goodies and Monique took hold of two drums, gave me one and ordered me to sit down and play them with her.  You don’t argue with Monique, at least you didn't then. 

Jamie and his drums...

Then came Valentine’s day, and we all had to wear red.  Junetta dashed off to the market and came back with a red T-shirt for me and I felt very much at home. 

All these years later, I still feel very close to all of you, even though most of the children I knew have moved on (some, sadly, heavenwards), but we now have the internet, Skype, Facebook; website and now your wonderful blog here; we can keep in touch as easily as if you were next door.  We don’t contact each other much, but when you’re friends you don’t have to. Those times I remember fondly, those children I celebrate always, and a school that stays with me because of the spirit and passion for the children they serve. 

Have a lovely year everyone. I’ll be thinking of you

Love,

Jamie
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Make  friends / hold them dear