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| Miss Cheryl Mapp facilitator at the Speech Therapy Intervention Workshop |
CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (January 23, 2006) -- A number of health personnel, educators and guidance counsellors on Nevis are now better equipped to identify and deal with students with speech disabilities following their participation at a Speech Therapy Intervention Workshop on Friday January 20, 2006 at the Red Cross Building in Charlestown.
The Workshop which was the brainchild of Rehabilitation Therapist at the Alexandra Hospital Ms Averil Walters was a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. It was facilitated by Barbadian Speech Language Pathologist Ms Cheryl Mapp under the theme " Providing timely, efficient and effective intervention through a collaborative effort".
According to Ms Walters, the workshop was designed to raise the awareness of speech language problems occurring in children, improve the participants ability in identifying those who may benefit from speech language therapy and to introduce strategies that could be used to decrease the difficulties that children with speech language problems experienced in the class room setting and everyday life.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Mr St. Clair Wallace who also chaired the opening ceremony said the workshop was a giant step and was hopeful that it would be beneficial.
"Today we are about to make another giant step and that is to train our counsellors and educators to deal with basic speech/ language disorder, which has become very prevalent among school children. This is just the beginning of things to come. I trust that very much like our eye care programme, we would be able to see a well established and sustainable speech therapy programme in our schools.
"The Ministry of Health stands committed to work with the Ministry of Education in rolling aside all physical and mental disabilities and to allow the teaching learning process to take precedence for the good of all," he said.
He said that over the past six years the Ministry of Health had received several requests from individuals, corporate institutions and in particular from the Ministry of Education to assist children with certain physical and mental disabilities which have impacted heavily on the teaching and learning process in Nevis schools adding that as health, education officials and professionals they are mandated by government to cater for the needs of all regardless of race, religion or disability.
Mr Wallace took the opportunity to commend Ms Averil Walters who he noted had taken on the bold initiative to plan and execute the workshop.
Meantime, Principal Education Officer in the Nevis Island Administration Mrs Jennifer Hodge who declared the workshop opened, regarded the workshop as a timely one and that she was certain that some of the intervention programmes that would be implemented in the schools following the workshop would be of benefit to children with speech and language impairments.
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| A section of the participants at the workshop |
"Barriers to communication need to be identified and ways need to be explored to lessen their effect so that the disadvantaged child is empowered to adopt a lifestyle as part of our community. I hope that the workshop this morning would be fulfilling and productive and that it would go a long way to equipping our teachers with some tools as a means of improving the quality of life for these special students," she said.
Mrs Hodge said she was hopeful that at the end of the workshop at least one participant would be so motivated that they would offer themselves for training to become a speech language pathologist.
Ms Mapp who facilitated the workshop, holds a Masters Degree in Speech Language Pathology, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology with a minor in Psychology and a certificate in Clinical Competence in Speech Language Pathology is employed by the Government of Barbados at the Childrens Development Centre and at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She is also a tutor of Speech Therapy at the Barbados Community College.
