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Meet the UK Training Team

Rachel

Dr. Rachel hosted the Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy workshop

Ruth

Ruth's insight & experience helped the Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy workshop

Sian

Sian's living experience of cerebral palsy was an invaluable inspiration to the group

Paul

Paul hosted the Disability Community Trainer workshop and provided guidance and support to all

Donald

Donald facilitated the Disability Community Trainer workshop

Project Outcomes Q and A

Q. Provide an illustrative example of how the project has made an impact.

 

Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy

From the Parent Trainer from Wales “My first thought is the personal impact of them (the trainee facilitators) meeting my daughter (who has Cerebral Palsy). At the start of the week they didn't know what to make of her and would talk through me, by the end they were really engaging with her. A few of them said to me how great it was to meet her and I think their coordinator thought the same. That has to make a difference to their future work. ….. At the start of the week it was all about the parents and what people with CP couldn't do and by the end they started to see them as people with potential and how they could support them.”

All the trainees felt their knowledge and ability to run a group had increased at the end of the course-see feedback graphs in report of GTKCP training

 

Disability Community Training

The group of Disability Community Trainers was eventually made up of 8 disabled people representing the 5 regions of Molo, Turi, Elburgon, Marioshoni and Sachangwan.  The group was made up of 5 men and 3 women and, whilst most of the people there had physical impairments, one had learning disabilities. 

The training covered issues such as what it means to be disabled, and which organisations may provide what type of support.  Two issues that were repeatedly returned to were the need to generate income for both individuals and the group and, to a lesser degree, support individuals, particularly children. These, at a couple of points, did serve to distract from our original purpose of producing Community Trainers.  However, by the end of the week, a self-help group of Disability Community Trainers was spontaneously established and was officially registered the week after the training.

 

Q. How do you plan to continue this impact in the future?

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Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy

We continue to communicate regularly with facilitators through their coordinator via Skype and directly via a WhatsApp group and text messaging. We have also encouraged and enabled peer support through follow up meetings. After the pilot GTKCP facilitators training in 2016, a challenge was transport for parents to travel to their group. This has been reduced by having more local groups, but some funding will be available if required for the most remote parents.

 

There is another visit focusing on other aspects of the disability project in May 2017 when some face-to-face feedback and support will be given. A further visit in October is planned which will include some of the trainers and if funding allows, some focus groups with the facilitators, and separately with parents they have delivered training to. The parents participating in run by the facilitators seeking services for their children is another measure of the training’s impact.

 

Disability Community Training

The Molo Red Cross are crucial to the ongoing impact of the DCT activities.   As both the GTKCP and DCT trainings were developed to be complementary to the Community Health Support for Disabled Children project, being supported by THET and the Appropriate Paper-based Technology initiative and started 2 years ago.  Whilst the idea is based on the community groups themselves taking control and ownership of the services being developed, it is also recognised that they may need support in doing this. 

 

As an outcome of the GTKCP training, 5 parents’ groups are being established, in Molo, Keringet , Marioshoni, Elburgon and Sachangwan, to cascade the information to parents in these communities.  The need to support these groups and, particularly, supply money for transport to enable parents to travel to the trainings within their communities was recognised and the Red Cross coordinators given 60,000KES for this purpose. 

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An outcome of the DCT training was the establishment of a self-help group to bring the people together and help them share ideas and information. This we hope will also enable Brecon Molo to have a clear disability group in Molo to relate to and with whose members, relationships to build. Consequently, a structure now exists within which future activities can take place. 

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Q. What challenges have you faced and what lessons have your learnt during the activities of the project?

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Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy

From the parent trainer from Wales “I would say the biggest challenge was covering all the material in such a short time. It was a bit of a shock to me how little they already knew and not only did you have to start from scratch you had to try and overcome the traditional witchcraft ….. To improve it would be good to have more children there for them to learn from”

 

Another challenge was regarding two of the trainee facilitators (a volunteer and a parent) whose attitude to one of the disabled community trainers sharing the accommodation and general behaviour/engagement with the group and sessions during the first three days raised concerns shared by all four trainers about their suitability to facilitate parents groups. This was discussed with the Red Cross co-ordinator and it was agreed they should be sent home without completing the course or keeping their handbooks and resource pack. They were from the same area meaning this area would not be offered a GTKCP parents group- still leaving 5 groups as a 6th pair of facilitators had been added to the training on the request of the medical officer of health (MOH) in a neighbouring sub county, still in greater Molo. The Molo MOH and health link Molo coordinator was informed later of the situation and supported the teams’ actions in sending the two trainees home.

 

Disability Community Training

The biggest challenge for this group was a continuous conflict of agendas between the economic need of self-help groups to be a means of generating income and a more politically focused agenda of raising awareness of disabled people’s needs within the wider community.  Our Kenyan co-trainer played a crucial role here in helping us to understand the background to this and to look at ways in which we could bring the two agendas together.  This tension required some adjustment to our programme and will probably result in a change in the long-term outcome.  However, we believe we have sown the seeds to empower the disabled community in both agendas. 

 

A further challenge was the inclusion of a young man with learning disabilities, who had had very limited experience of life outside his home.  This resulted in his brother, who - it turned out - was an amputee, joining the group to assist with translation from Kikuyu into Swahili and enabling the young man to participate.  Whilst the young man was understandably very quiet to start with, with encouragement and help, he was eventually able to identify that one of his main interests was to be able to keep chickens, in order to earn and income for his family.  Incidentally, his brother became a very important member of the group, contributing to the discussions and debates.

 

Another major challenge was working with people where none of them had gone further than primary school education (generally up to ages 12-14).  Consequently, the two Welsh trainers were very reliant upon the Kenyan partner to translate from English into Swahili.

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Q. Provide information about indirect beneficiaries of the work.

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Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy

The children of the parents trained and the parents and their children who attend the GTKCP parents groups run by the new facilitators- by powering these parents to better support their children’s needs. . One group has   already met with 13 parents to introduce the course. As the CHVs and CHEWS will identify and support children with disabilities in their home areas – their knowledge of CP will enhance the work with the parents with disabled children thus increasing those who are benefiting. The Physio trainer increased his own knowledge-thus benefiting all children with CP he sees.

 

Disability Community Training

Ultimately the activity aimed to increase awareness of disability and the needs of disabled people throughout the local community of each trainee.  It is envisaged that the impact of the training programme will be felt through cascaded training in schools, churches and other community organisations.  It is also envisaged that the groups will start to lobby government offices to promote their rights and needs through the official system.  However, as a first step in this process, the experience of the training indicates that the first impact will be felt in the disabled people’s organisations and that this will be primarily based around income generation projects and, possibly, securing equipment and resources.

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Q. Highlight any practical actions took to make your project inclusive.

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Getting to Know Cerebral Palsy

We succeeded in having a fairly equal number of parents to health workers or volunteers. All the parents who completed the course were female (the one father unfortunately not completing the course) and there were more male than female (4:2) health workers/volunteers. This probably reflects the gender balance in both groups within the communities they are from. For the parents groups- health workers will do home visits to ensure all parents who could benefit from the training are identified providing transport fares if unable to fund themselves.

 

Disability Community Training

The group was made up entirely of disabled people and, during the recruitment process, we emphasised the need to have both male and female participants.  One person who attended had learning disabilities and was not comfortable with the language of the course, which was Swahili.  Consequently, a relative of his, who was also a disabled person, joined the training to assist with translation into Kikuyu.

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