HAPPY EASTER! I hope you are all keeping well and safe at this strange time!
As with most things, Covid-19 is also affecting Family First Ghana. Covid-19 has reached Ghana and the Government are doing a good job at being proactive to stop the spread, Kumasi and Accra are in lockdown for at least 2 weeks currently. Which of course reduces the field work we can be doing with our families. We think it is vital that our families stay at home, so are supporting with some necessary food packages.
This is a time I am very grateful for our therapists; they work hard with the best interest of our children and each child is showing individual developments which the families celebrate together. Our therapists also work within the family’s home to create an accessible environment and teach the parents how to carry out the therapy exercises from home. Now at this period of lockdown where we cannot meet with our families face to face, we are able to speak weekly on the phone and advise them on activities to be doing from home that they have already been trained in 😊 Fred has created a Covid-19 Lockdown plan for each family and child which he will be monitoring weekly and reassuring our parents throughout this difficult time.
This is the perfect time to introduce our newest addition to the team – recently Ghana have graduated their first group of locally trained Speech and Language Therapists and now Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital have their first full-time Speech and Language Therapist. Clement is extremely passionate and child-focused and has offered his time on Saturday mornings to help our families and children. Through his great explanations to the family of the benefits of speech and language therapy and the specific exercises he has been doing, I have seen the families quickly add these exercises into their daily plans for their children and the kids just love his friendly and enthusiastic manner!!
We too are waiting for this time to be over and making plans for afterwards. Our team of Physiotherapists and our Speech and Language Therapist are ready to do comprehensive assessments of each child’s progress and set new goals within our family care plans!
We are very happy that the weekend before Lockdown was announced we had a wonderful meeting with all of our families. Pearl’s Mum has been trained in soap making, including liquid soap, dettol, bleach and fabric softener. With the beginning of Covid-19 we bought each family a bottle of liquid soap and did a handwashing demonstration, focusing on the parents supporting their children to wash their hands thoroughly. As well as bottles of Dettol and bleach or fabric softener. Not only was this to ensure each family has a clean home environment at this time, but it also offers Pearl’s mother some income. Pearl is currently not at school so her Mum can not travel to sell the products, so we wanted to help fund for Pearl’s pampers and support she needs due to her additional needs.
We spent the morning at the centre doing therapy, we have several new families that we are working with and these were introduced to our families. Whilst the children are doing their therapy sessions, parents have chance to chat and Fred offers advice and support to keep our families positive, each week we look at a positive development that each child has shown!!
After this we took all of the kids swimming, which was SO WONDERFUL! Thanks to a friend who allowed us to use his pool and rubber rings the children were able to bob around independently. Each of the children we work with are so reliant on others to achieve simple daily tasks, each child shows so much determination and desire to be able to do things independently, so it was so wonderful to everyone splashing and calling out to each other and having typical childhood experiences. All of the parents support each other’s children and it really feels like Family First has become one big Family!!
**Slide for more pictures
Don’t worry we shall be using this time to benefit the NGO – Fred will take some time to do online training courses, I will be updating our files and be looking into UK charity registration and we will be introducing some of the new children we have started supporting, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!!
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