This morning Dr. Zha and Yang Pei Feng wanted to give the caregivers a chance to practice what they had learned earlier this week from Sandra and Nancy. 

They also had questions about more children they wanted help evaluating.  We set to work early in order to see as many children as possible.

One little girl the therapists had not met earlier was pointed out by Dr. Zha and Yang Pei Feng.

Both women were very concerned about Lily, a 20 month old.  She seemed to have a general lack of affect.    How could they and her aunties help Lily to grow physically stronger and more interactive?

Nancy showed ways to encourage Lily to hold herself more erect and work her core muscles.   Dr. Zha also noted how given the opportunity, Lily would drift away from the other children rather than interact.   Sandra and Nancy encouraged the staff to gently but firmly draw her back in to play.   

Lily needs more intensive "face time" than other children in order to learn to take and give visual cues.   Dr. Zha and the therapists showed Lily's First Hugs auntie simple ways in which she could help. 

As the day progressed, the strategy for how to best assist the aunties in their work with the children became one of practicality:  Children with disabilities would receive therapy integrated as much as possible into their daily routines.   

This means helping a child learn to hold a spoon during lunch time and to practice transferring from bed to a chair in the morning while he is getting up. 

This approach would help the aunties manage more than one child at once and help the child gain tangible skills useful in every day living.  

Children with disabilities living anywhere in the world thrive best when they have a parent to advocate for them and the financial support, often substantial, necessary to get them the medical and therapeutic intervention they need.  These children have no family, although the staff work hard to give them a loving home.

The rising number of children with special needs at the orphanage makes it impossible to provide every child with the full-time care giver and the intensive therapy each of them would need for more rapid improvement. 

But even without families, miracles can occur for these kids with the right training and the right techniques at the right time.  Kindness, determination and practical education go a long way in bringing a child toward independence and growth!

Between sessions with individual children Nancy and Sandra demonstrated on the staff skills they could use to help children, such as learning to stand, roll over, and build core strength.  

Staff learned what it felt like to the child to receive different kinds of therapies as well as how to recognize body points they would focus upon when working with the children.  

Nancy and Sandra emphasized slow, careful treatments that would help without risk of hurting.

The other constant goal will be to make the environment as rich as possible for the children.  Because of their disabilities, many of the kids will grow up in the orphanage.   Integrating joyful learning into their daily lives is crucial.  

The children will learn at different rates and will need to work harder at building different skills.  Learning for them must take place in an atmosphere that is both structured and yet open enough to accommodate their individual needs.

As we collaborate with the orphanage staff this coming year to develop a special needs classroom, the kids can continue to learn with simple methods integrated into the playrooms throughout the orphanage.   The children's avid curiosity and energy makes them great little students already!

Learning from Each Other
June 5. 2010

One of the keys to good cross-cultural training and team building is recognizing what we can learn from each other in order to best help the children.    FKI's history with the orphanage--almost ten years in the making!--has been crucial our in finding common ground.  

Kathlene and Jenoys met with Director Chen and orphanage programming directors Huang Yan and Dr. Zha several times during this amazing week in order to assess how the programs FKI helped create and fund are doing.  

We talked about so many of the children we'd like to help, and Director Chen and orphanage staff spoke to us about the successes and challenges they've experienced with the kids. 

The urgency to create a special needs classroom was one of our chief topics of conversation, along with the most efficient way to provide therapy.  We all agreed these were our highest priorities.

Some of our long discussion sessions were spent brainstorming together how FKI's focus on education--for staff and children--could best support the goals the orphanage staff have for the children. 

These little residents are the ones the programs are created for, so we all had to listen to them as well!

We also considered how to best help the caregivers, who are facing challenges as they work with children with more complex needs.   Care giving for children with special needs can be exhausting work.  

These women have helped hundreds of children thrive and reach loving homes.  They bring a rich, practical experience to all they do at the orphanage, so building on their knowledge and heart is on everyone's mind.

The next step is finding creative ways to get these caring staff more of the support, training and relief they need to continue to do their good work.

Certainly the new orphanage's accessibility-friendly facility and gorgeous location has gone a long way toward enhancing the possibilities for the children with special needs. 

All of us on the team were impressed with the green, beautiful grounds and play places.   The older residents we met were interested to share what they know as well!   Social welfare institutes in China are also home to the elderly without families.

We encountered several of these lovely people on our daily walks to and from the dining hall for lunch and as we caught the staff shuttle bus back to Fuling at the end of the day.

The age of some of the women was amazing--one we met was 100!  We were impressed by their spry, healthy attitudes.

Nancy received an impromptu Tai Qi lesson from one of the "grandmas."

The positive outlook of the staff and elderly is contagious. They stay upbeat while facing tough questions and needs.  We were inspired by their "can do attitudes." The senior staff and caregivers are invested in the training and ideas we've shared with them.  

We all left our meetings with lists of what can each bring back to the table in order to best work as an international team in this ongoing effort to improve the lives of these great kids.  

Certainly the kids are the most inspiring of all, although a few of us may take "learn from the children" a little too literally! 

Checking on Our Foster Kids
June 4. 2010

Our hard-working therapists Nancy and Sandra and FKI volunteers Kathlene and Jenoys were taken by the orphanage staff to visit foster children in their homes.   Huang Yan, director of the foster care program, wanted us to see two of our sponsored children.   One of the children was a four year old girl who seems reluctant to speak, and the other a six year old boy with autism.  

Those foster families wanted some support and feedback, and so we were welcomed into each comfortable home--one close by the old orphanage site in downtown Fuling and the other not far from the Yangtze River.  

The therapists made quick progress with the little girl, after showing her foster mom and grandma fun ways to help her talk.   (Sandra put together a little wooden airplane and flew it in the room.  That was quite a hit!)

The foster child with autism looks beautifully cared for, but his needs are more intense.  His foster mother and father need more support.  The therapists gave them some excellent ideas and showed some techniques to help him.   His foster father asked good questions about his foster son.  You could see he was struggling with understanding his son's mannerisms and challenges.  

The understanding of autism is just beginning to spread in China.   After visiting this little guy and his worried foster parents, we put doing more to help children with autism on our list of FKI's priorities.   We were not able to get photos in the foster homes to show you, so we are sharing with you some pix of other great kids:

The photos in this blog entry are all of foster children sponsored by FKI donors. 

Most have a mild disability of some kind.   They are mostly of school age and receive loving care in their foster families, who send them to school.  

We got to see so many of the kids at the same time, because several gathered at the orphanage for an afternoon in order to celebrate Children's Day.

They are a playful, energetic bunch.   We visited with them all for a little while--okay, we played like crazy wth them for an hour or so, because these kids have high energy levels!

We played ball, and one of our Chinese volunteers read stories to one of our older, sponsored children, a gentle girl with a mild mental disability.  

The children look great!  Thank you to everyone who has donated to FKI's Foster Care Program.  You have given a child a family.

Time Out for Babies
June 3. 2010

The FKI team took a few short breaks from therapy work with the toddlers and older children to duck in and get a "baby fix" by cuddling the itty bitties.

Almost all the babies at the orphanage, from newborn on, are now in FKI's First Hugs infant nurture program.  

Some of the babies have no special needs, and others have correctable needs like cleft palates.    We saw infants soon to have their surgeries and some post surgery and healing nicely. 

Some of the babies have more profound needs, including CP and Down's Syndrome.   These children, who are less likely to be adopted, are the ones who will benefit most directly from the new therapy program! 

At one point the orphanage was home to over 400 infants, very few with special needs.   It was a heroic challenge for staff to keep up with them all.  Today, the orphanage is a quieter place, but the children's individual needs can be more profound and challenging.

Their aunties keep all the babies clean and cuddled. You can see their little personalities emerging already.   They were certainly curious about us.  They were not afraid at all of our new faces, and were ready to play! 

The babies' day alternates between napping, floor time (practice for learning to rolling over and handle toys!), cuddling time, bouncy chair time, and walker time.   The awake babies are taken to either the First Hugs Room or another play room, so as not to wake their sleeping little buddies.

First Hugs aunties do floor time with the babies throughout the orphanage, not just in the First Hugs room.  First Hugs is now integrated throughout the orphanage!

There were many sweet touches in the cribs, including little stuffed toys and colorful blankets and bedspreads.

The cribs, painted a pretty blue, are the original cribs that held many of the children now adopted from Fuling.  In the "old days" these wooden cribs, which feature a bunny on each side, were green and white.  They were repainted when the orphanage was moved to its new location on Gathering Clouds Mountain.      

In the orphanage kitchen bottles are still boiled, formula mixed, and rice porridge made for the littlest ones.  Perhaps greatest evidence of the babies are the stacks of cloth diapers setting in different rooms throughout the orphanage.   The aunties seemed always prepared to make a quick change! 

The little ones without special needs or correctable needs will join their new families soon, and each will be stronger for the care given by the First Hugs program, which has been successful in helping hundreds of little ones keep on target developmentally and learn to to bond before meeting their new parents. 

Along with helping to put in place the new therapy program for children with special needs, FKI will continue to work with orphanage staff to keep babies in their care happy and thriving.  

All Together Now
June 3. 2010

This morning we took a break from one-on-one therapy and staff training and got aunties and kids together in FKI's First Hugs room for some group therapy and fun.   

One of the challenges the aunties have is keeping children of such varying abilities all occupied and learning at the same time.  

One answer?  Circle time!  

We put our raucous crew together on the floor with their aunties.   We all sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Chinese first, adding lots of hand motions.  Clapping, reaching above their heads, and moving in tandem with their aunties and other kids helps toddlers with disabilities learn to be social and develop motor skills.    After fifteen minutes of circle time, the children were much calmer and better able to focus.

The aunties asked, "What if some of the kids can't participate?"  The therapists reminded them that some children with disabilities just need longer and some help to learn.   Be patient, and keep bringing them in to the group activity   Accept them for who they are, while at the same time asking them to continue to expand their range.  

Kids with disabilities are much more capable than we often realize! 

Time for the obstacle course!  

Sandra and Nancy took therapy cushions and a variety of play tools to set up a little "track" for the kids.  They would have to climb through, under and over objects. 

This would help them learn to better negotiate the world around them, gain better balance, and to be a little daring to try new things, too!

It was, in a word, hilarious.  

Half the kids went off like shot.  Some were freaked out about to climbing through a tube, but we encouraged them to try--and they did.   

Kids who could not walk pulled themselves through.   (A few hurried back to go through it again.) The aunties looked skeptical at first, but by the end they were applauding, too.       

The effort for much of this morning was teaching the children to work and play together.   This way they can learn to make friends, interact with others, and learn new skills.  

Teamwork does not just apply to their aunties.  It applies to the kids, too.  

They fought over the toys, but they also shared.  They also loved some of the special needs equipment.  Pushing little Hui Hui in her chair, and passing toys back and forth to her, became the best fun ever!

It became obvious within just a short time that many of the children with cerebral palsy and other harder to diagnose disabilities would grow mentally very fast with more intense education.  This little guy in the yellow, loved the flashcards.  He and his friend Aileen, who also has CP, are a dynamic duo just raring to go!

The aunties under Dr. Zha's guidance will work into the kids daily schedule circle time and guided movement time.   There are close to 20 children who are ready to try this kind of interactive learning. 

The toys donated by Fuling adoptive families will come in handy!  (Thanks, everyone!)

And what did we "on the ground" FKI people, Kathlene and Jenoys, think?   We wished we could do the obstacle course, too!  But even more than that, we could see the possibilities for these kids and wanted to help more. 

Today's group fun is a superb start to the special needs preschool FKI will assist the orphanage staff in developing. 

Every child at the orphanage will be a learning child!

The Travel Team

Fuling Kids is All-Volunteer Staffed! Board of Directors
and Advisory Members

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