Photos from training day 3...

The first photo is some of our team with Madame Ilham Hussain, the president's wife. She and Zila (in the 2nd photo) started the Maldives Autism Association. The 3rd photo is our team during our morning commute!

The past 3 days of training has been incredible. Our morning commute consists of a 20 minute speed boat ride, which definitely beats my commute back home! We started the first training day with a presentation that was an introduction to Knowledge for People and to autism in general. After the intro, participants broke up into 2 groups--a group of all parents of children who have autism and a group of teachers and other professionals.

The first session for the parents focused on stress management and was lead by Liz and Young. Several months ago, we surveyed the parents to find out what training they were hoping to receive from us. One of the top priorities, in addition to learning about different ways to help their child, was how to deal with the stress that comes with having a child who has autism. At first, the parents were reluctant to share their story about their child and their experience with autism so far. As the session progressed, more and more parents opened up and shared what they are going through. It was very moving. We learned that it is not common at all in their culture to talk about "feelings" or talk about what they are going through. We found that most parents had a very difficult time getting a diagnosis and many of them ended up going to India or Sri Lanka to finally hear the word autism. They talked about the grief they feel. They talked about needing more support from their family and their community. They talked about hope. They seemed excited about starting a support group amongst themselves--something that doesn't exist in the Maldives.

The sessions while we are here consist of advanced training of evidence based therapies for the teachers at the Maldives Autism Association (MAA), training for teachers and professionals from all around the Maldives, diagnostic training for doctors and psychiatrists, and one-on-one consultations for parents who have their child on the waiting list for MAA (there are 30+ families on the list!). Some of these families have never received any type of service or consultation and they were grateful for the information we provided them.

One of the most important pieces to our training, which will help to ensure sustainability, is the advanced training of the teachers at the Maldives Autism Association. Tracy and Liz provided intense evaluation training and the teachers definitely demonstrated a high level of understanding! We were amazed at how quickly they learned the information and we have no doubt they will be proficient at it in no time.

That's all for now. We have a 2 day break since their weekend is Friday and Saturday and we are taking the time to rejuvenate on the beach :)

Visiting a Local Island

Wow, it has been a great two days! The Maldives is very tourist driven and most of the islands that are open to tourists are filled with resorts. This is not the Maldives we wanted to see. We instead wanted to see the local community and learn more about the culture here. When providing training in a country with a culture different from ours, it is important to understand as much as possible and to be culturally sensitive. The amazing ladies at the Maldives Association arranged for a trip to a local island for our team. We took an hour long boat ride to and island called Hurra. Many of the people living on Hurra were born and raised there and it is common for the entire family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents) to live under one roof.

We were welcomed into the homes of the locals and they were extremely hospitable. They even carved out coconuts with fresh coconut water for each of us! After visiting some homes, we toured the only school on the island. We were very impressed! There were signs everywhere encouraging Character Education and the classrooms were very inviting and set up well. We learned that while there are not special services for children who have a disability, they teach children at their ability level. We then headed to a home where the children have Quran studies and an adorable 5-year-old boy read us a passage. He was so cute and proud!

The island has a very peaceful feeling to it and we were very thankful to have visited. We really enjoyed talking with the parents of children and interacting with the kids themselves. We finally headed back to Bandos, where we are staying, and enjoyed the incredible views of the Indian Ocean, surfers, huge manta rays, and other gorgeous island. What a great day :)

I will (or one of the other team members) will blog soon about our first day of training!

KfP Has Arrived in the Maldives!

The team has all arrived! Liz and Tracy visited the Maldives Autism Association on Sunday to see what wonderful work they are already doing. We spent the day yesterday visiting a local island to learn about the culture in the Maldives and build our team. We start our training today! Watch for a more detailed blog entry later today :)

Amazing Video

One of our wonderful volunteers, Renee Poole, put together this incredibly moving video from our trip to Nepal last summer: http://youtu.be/sr3Tmw6sWMM

Introducing the 2012 KfP Maldives Team!

We are very excited to announce that we will be heading to the Maldives this summer to provide autism training and education to teachers, parents, doctors, and other professionals in Malé, Maldives. We will be hosted by the Maldives Autism Association (MAA) and are working closely with the teachers and staff. The MAA was founded by Madam Ilham Hussain in 2011 and they are working very hard to improve the quality of life for children with autism in the Maldives.

We have several "veteran" team members, as well as some new faces! We are all very excited.

Here is the team:

Nikki Closser: Nikki founded Knowledge for People in December 2008 due to the lack of autism resources available to families, educators, and communities in many developing countries. She received her MSW and has been a school social worker for the last 9 years.

Lizzy Donovan: Lizzy is a Senior Educational Consultant at ABC of NC. She has over 12 years of working with children who have autism and their families and she is currently completing her supervision to become a Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst. Lizzy was the Autism Society of North Carolina’s Professional of the Year in 2008.

Selene Johnson: Selene is currently the Executive Director of ABC of NC in North Carolina. She is also a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Licensed Special Education Teacher and Infant/Toddler Family Specialist.

Liz Kleine: Liz has been working with children who have autism and their families since 2004. She currently works in the autism center at Seattle Children's Hospital and her primary focus is on behavior and ABA. Liz is currently working on her Master's degree in Counseling.

Young Nelson: Young graduated from the University of Washington and joined the research team in the autism center at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Dawn Rohlik: Dawn has been an occupational therapist since 1983. She is the founder of Pediatric Possibilities, a private practice in Raleigh, NC. Her interest, teaching and extensive training are focused on integrating sensory processing disorders, DIR/FloorTime and listening techniques, including Therapeutic Listening, Samonas, and Integrative Listening System (iLs). She focuses her treatment in a multi-disciplinary model using a family oriented developmental approach so that children and families can be their best.

Cheri Scarff: Cheri has been providing services for children with autism since 1984 in the Pacific Northwest. She has worked with the birth to three population in home health and has over 20 years experience in the public school setting. Cheri has been trained in mindfulness and recently completed level 2 training in the Mindful Schools curriculum in Berkeley, during the summer of 2011. She is currently involved in a research study on the effectiveness of mindfulness on attention in school age children.

Barbara Still, Ph.D.: Barbara is a licensed psychologist in NC who has worked with very young children (0-5) for over 30 years. Her interest in autism spectrum disorder began when she worked at Amos Cottage (part of Bowman Gray Medical School) in the 70s. She has training and experience in play therapy, Theraplay, family systems strategies, cognitive behavior therapy, TEACCH methods, and floortime. As a member of a multidiscipline assessment and treatment team in the early years of NC Developmental Evaluation system, Barbara has a deep appreciation for how “it takes a village” to care for our children. For 18 years, Barbara has owned Wee Play Psychological Services and provided assessment and treatment services to young children with autism and their families within the DIR model.

Tracy Vail: Tracy is a Speech and Language Pathologist who has been working with children who have autism for 29 years. She helped start the Mariposa School for Children with autism and is a co-owner of Let's Talk Speech & Language Services in North Carolina where she works with a team of employees to provide speech therapy, occupational therapy, tutoring and consulting services to children on the Autism Spectrum using evidenced based practices

Tracy Vail provides background and shares her experiences in Nepal...

It's hard to imagine a world where people on the streets, those in government and those in charge of education don't have any idea what autism is. While we still have a long way to go in the United States in insurance reimbursement, appropriate educational settings and services and increasing awareness, I have never met anyone who didn't even know what the disorder was. That wasn't the case during a trip to Nepal that I made with Knowledge for People this summer. People on the streets would ask why we were visiting the country and have no clue when we tried to explain autism to them. Parents look for professional help and get suggestions like "stop feeding him fish and he'll stop flapping like one". Parents tend to keep their kids indoors because of the stares and comments that come from a lack of awareness of the disorder. They had no one to turn to for help...at least until Autism Care Nepal formed in 2008.

Since that time the small group of dedicated parents have developed a resource center and are offering ever increasing support and programming for the children and their families. The leadership there has aquired any resource they could get their hands on and attended every trainning they could to learn to help themselves and help other families in Nepal. They've made remarkable progress over the past 3 years!

The summer of 2011 was the second trip that Knowledge for People made to Nepal and we had a team of 10 amazing instructors! The participants were broken into 3 groups of learners. The first two groups rotated in 2 day trainings on applied behavior analysis, increasing social motivation, sensory and fine motor issues, communication training and the use of visual supports. The 3rd group, people who had considerable training already, worked with me to learn to assess and plan programs for 3 model children using the VB-Mapp (generously donated by Barbara Esch).

By the end of the 2 weeks, parents had learned how to play with, engage with, help regulate and teach their children with Autism. The advanced team had the tools to assess and make appropriate programming recommendations for new children coming in and many new friends were made.

While the rest of the team was training at ACN, Nikki Closser, the executive director and Renee Poole, the programs coordinator at Knowledge for People traveled around the country raising awareness. They met with school personnel, principals, education boards and government officials to raise awareness and advocate for services for the children.

We did good work and it was very rewarding. I think Lizzie summed it up best when she said the parents got to work with professionals who loved their children, not in spite of their autism but because of it. It was gift for all of us!

If you're interested in supporting international autism services, either financially, by sharing your gifts or if you are a country in need of support, please contact Nikki Closser at Knowledge for People for further information.