Hi, my name's Kati and I'm the Occupational Therapist here at Cape Town Hospital
Clients waiting to be seen by Kati....
Hi Kati, I've been told to come and see you by my doctor as Steph (the child) has been diagnosed with severe learning difficulties.
Oh dear, ok well as an Occupational Therapist my role is to help Steph with her daily occupations, what problems is she having?
Steph's finding it difficult to concentrate at school and is struggling to make sense of what the teachers say.
Ok, it may be that Steph would be better off going to a special needs school, unfortunately there is only one and it's 100km away....
Hi Kati, it's been a four weeks now and Steph still has not seen the Psychologist....I'm worried that people are not taking Steph's case seriously.
Special needs school 100km away....
Application form
Let's fill out the application form for Steph
Ok, how long will that take?
Steph will need to be assessed by a clinical Psychologist before being accepted by the educational board to attend special schooling
Oh dear, so what should we do in the mean time?
Oh dear, this is going to be difficult.
Unfortunately it might take some time, we have refered clients to the educational psychologist before and as she is 100km away, it does take a while for clients to be assessed.
Several weeks later....
The African American Children with Learning Difficulties association (AACLD n.d.) report how parents must advocate for thier child and know thier children's rights to an education.
Hi both, oh dear, that's a shame. I'm not sure how long you'll still have to wait I'm afraid, I havent heared from the Psychologist since the referral was made...
That sounds great!
I have managed to make contact with a person in the administration unit of the educational board. I am going to try and send your case to them to process.
Hi both, thank you for letting me come to your home for today's session. This is something new we are trying to improve our sessions.
Hi!
Hi!
Scheppers et al. (2006: 339) explain how insificient lanuage skills can act as a barrier for service users when seeking professional assistance.
[Speaks in a foreign language]
That's great news, thanks so much Kati. What about the other children though?
Hi both, thanks for coming in today. I've had news from the education board that you have been placed on a waiting list for special schooling.
I'm afraid it's a slow process and I haven't been able to get anyone else on the waiting list yet, they may have to wait to be assessed by the psychologist...
This is the end of Kati's story. The following few slides depict some possible soloutions to Kati's problem as discussed within the 354OT openlearning forum...Thanks for reading Kati's story!
According to the Department for International Development (2013), the UK government is creating more schools in South Sudan to promote child education. With child education being on the departments agenda, the creation of additional schools should lead to greater educational achievement for deprived children.
One soloution - A change in existing legislation needs to occur to enhance funding to the healthcare and education sector, leading to more special schools.
According to Unicef (2014) 19 million primary age children and 7 million lower secondary age children within east and south africa are out of school, this is 1 in 5 children.
Several organisations have joined forces to form the "Right 2 Education Children With Disabilities" (R2E CWD) to promote education for disabled children as a right (R2E CWD n.d.)
References AACLD (n.d.) The Solution [online] available from <http://www.aacld.org/thesolution.html> [19/03/2015] Department for International Development (2013) Education position paper: Improving learning, expanding opportunities [online] available from <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225715/Education_Position_Paper_July_2013.pdf> [18/03/2015] R2E CWD (n.d.) Key Campaign Messages [online] available from <http://www.saaled.org.za/R2ECWD/messages.php> [18/03/2015] Scheppers, E., Dongen, E. V., Dekker, J., Geertzen, J., and Dekker, J. (2006) ‘Potential barriers to the use of health services among minorities: a review’ Family Practice-an international journal 23 (3), 325-348 Unicef (2014) Global Initiative on Out-of School Children [online] available from <http://www.uis.unesco.org/Library/Documents/global-initiative-out-of-school-children-education-africa-2013-en.pdf> [18/03/2015]