Protect People with Disabilities against COVID-19

Dear Friends,

Project Noor under the agesis of the Noorbhai M. Hasanali Dedanwala (NMHD) Charitable trust initiated the Teletherapy project for children with disabilities in partnership with Abha Seva Sadan (ABS), Jharkhand.

The COVID – 19 pandemic has given us an opportunity to think and create novel and out of the box interventions in all sectors. The same applies to interventions for children with disabilities. This project hopes to create a model for sustainable and replicable model for therapy interventions for children with disabilities.

Under the current project, Project Noor has set up partnership with ABS in Jharkhand to support them in providing evidence-based interventions to their beneficiaries. Project Noor’s role is to bring in experts in the area of disability management through the use of technology with the aim of reaching their expertise to the rural and tribal communities of children with disabilities.

Capacity building - The staff of the ABS has undergone an intensive 10- day online training program to equip them with the skills to manage children with disabilities attending their organization.

Several trainers participated in the training and gave their time to support the training. The trainers included; Dr Nigamaja Hariharan with several years of experience of working with children with disabilities in low resource setting, Dr Nazia Houzaifa and Dr Ali Punjani from Karachi Pakistan along with Dr Rangwala, Managing trustee of Project Noor were also trainers on the pre project training.

Pre Intervention plans: The members of the professional intervention team were contacted and their support for the project obtained by Project Noor. The professional intervention team comprised of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists & special educators.

Dr Dilip Rout, Project Director, ABS with support of the ABS health workers started scoping and enrolling children to the project. By end of January 35 children with varying disabilities were enrolled for the project along with due consent form the parents and care givers.

The health workers began their first line of assessments in the month of February 2021. The assessments were uploaded on to the app.

A timetable for the health worker and the professional was created with each health worker being allotted 6 to 7 children each. Each professional therapist was allotted between 3 – 5 children whom they provide sessions to every week.

Intervention by the professional team began on 23^rd February 2021 and is conducted every week on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 10 am to 2 pm via the Google meet platform.

Initial findings

• 79% of the children do not have a formal medicaldiagnosis

• 33% of the parents reported poor health of their children & 59% reported reasonable health whereas ONLY 7% have reported good health

• 22 children are unable to walk at all whereas 6 do it withdifficulty where as 11 have no difficulty inwalking

• 28 children are unable to use words to communicate where as 8 do it with difficulty. Only 7 have no difficulty to use single words to speak.

Interventions

 A team of 10 physiotherapists and two occupational therapists has been enlisted to provide therapy to the 35 children enrolled for the project.

They are provided therapy on once a week basis.

 Parents speak

3 speech therapists are providing support to 15 children on once a week basis.

Therapy is held every week on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 10 am to 2 pm.

The children visit the center with their caregivers on a weekly basis and they are provided therapy by the CHW under the guidance of the professional who signs into the session on a virtual basis. Individualized goals have been set for each child in partnership with the parents and the CHW.

These goals will be tracked every 3 months to monitor the progress.