Engaging Students in Service in Ghana Developing Sustainable International Programs

1. Engaging Students in Service in Ghana Developing Sustainable International Programs Catherine Crowley, Dorothy Leone, Elaine Fong, Brooke Linden, Diana Pritsker, Jaclyn Rubinstein, Rebecca Steinhilber & Miriam Baigorri Teachers College, Columbia University Iona College Introduction The graduate SLP program at Teachers College offers an international experience annually to Ghana to enhance students’ cultural competencies. Fourteen graduate students from Teachers College, Columbia University accompanied by the program director, Catherine Crowley, the clinical director, Miriam Baigorri, and the clinical supervisor, Dorothy Leone, traveled to Ghana, West Africa from December 30, 2010 to January 15, 2011. Throughout the course of the trip, the group provided speech and language therapy to patients with a variety of disorders, including cleft lip and cleft palate, expressive and receptive language delays/disorders, fluency disorders, voice disorders, and neurogenic disorders in both hospital and school settings. A focus of the trip was to increase sustainability once the group left Ghana. Students and supervisors were challenged to explore ways to create a lasting impact in a country with extremely limited speech and language services, supplies and materials. • Continued Communication • Sustainability is a critical part of any international SLP program, particularly one in a developing country. Once the clinicians and services from the visiting group leave, the hard work begins. By creating a program that maintains communication with key support staff members at the visited institutions, and provides those staff members and caregivers with strategies that are realistic and manageable, sustainability can be successfully achieved. The following are ways we have focused on sustainability and maintained communication with Ghana: • Implementation of a 12-month curriculum with Head Teacher Belinda Bukari focusing on increasing communication and literacy development at the Effiduase Unit School • Coordination of donations from Rotary International to help fund audiological centers in 4 regional hospitals • January 2012 trip will coincide with a 3-day professional development retreat for 115 special education teachers to focus on inclusion and literacy development • Ongoing communication with Minister of Education and Division of Special Education to increase financial support for children with disabilities • Continued media exposure in Ghana to increase awareness and understanding about disabilities • School Settings • In Ghana, schools for children with disabilities receive limited funding, and therefore it was particularly important to equip the teachers and staff with low-cost, low-tech methods and resources to support students with special needs. This year, we had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with head teachers Belinda Bukari at the Effiduase Unit School and Clement Ntim at the Nkawkaw Unit School. 3 Forms of Sustainability  Hospital settings   School settings   Continued communication  • Hospital Settings • There are extremely limited speech and language therapy services in Ghana. We had the pleasure of meeting Albert Osei Bagyina, one of the only practicing speech pathologists in Ghana. Albert services patients at Ghana’s Korle Bu Hospital and University of Ghana Hospital. We worked closely with Albert and shared our ideas and knowledge from our education at Teachers College. We also provided information about speech and language to nurses and other collaborating professionals. Even though we had limited time with each client, we provided each individual with a program of care and ensured that the client and/or their families, doctors, and nurses, understood the course of action we were recommending. We hope that our work in Ghana will spark an interest in speech pathology in Ghanain medical students and hospital staff! • Promoting inclusion and acceptance of children with special needs in the schools: • Shared the academic and social successes of children with disabilities with teachers, students and parents, as well as with the Ministry of Education and Division of Special Education • Organized a Field Day, including circle games and singing songs, for all general education and special education students at the Effiduase School • Facilitated priceless opportunities for general education and special education students to interact and learn from each other References Crowley, C. & Baigorri, M. (in press 2011). Effective International Programs: Substanceand sustainability in student SLP programs. Perspectives, SIG 17 Global Issues inCommunication Disorders. Rockville, MD: ASHA. Dowskin, E., (2011).  “Words from Ghana.” Inside TC, 16(3), 1. Found athttp://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=7827.   Febraio, K. (in press, Spring 2011), “International opportunities for Teachers College SLPstudents.” The NYSSLHA Communicator. “Gone to Ghana.” http://ghana-slp-2011.blogspot.com/, January 2011. Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies. (2011, February 3). “Ghana’s unitschools integrate learners with disabilities”.  Found at http://www.ineesite.org/index.php/blog.   • AAC cards for the marketplace: • Provided a means for students who are nonverbal to carry out day-to-day tasks by using a picture exchange system • Raised awareness regarding the potential of children who have special needs, reaffirming that they are able to carry out day-to-day tasks and contribute to the community • Making recommendations for cleft palate patients: • Raised awareness and knowledge about speech characteristics before and after cleft lip and palate repairs • Provided parents with a list of basic recommendations to help improve their child’s speech A special Thank You tothe Haas Foundation, Central Coast Children’s Foundation, Rotary International for their donations to help fund our missions in Ghana, and to Teachers College & Iona College for supporting our work.