The teams around us all

Upbringing

Some people talk about the team around the child. They are usually talking about the team around the child with disability.

All children need a team around them and all adults too, whether disabled or not.

Yesterday was a day when I realised once again how lucky I am to have been involved in the team around a few very special children, now young adults, and as a result of being a part of their teams I have some very special people in my own team in Germany too!

Let me tell you the stories!

When I first arrived in Germany the first friends that I made all had children of a similar age to my sister’s children. As with my sister’s children I also had a role to play in the upbringing of the children of my new friends. Over the years these friends became my German family. In one case the child, already a young adult asked whether I could help with conversational English and I ended up becoming very good friends with his mother.

Time is the essence

I work with children but I have no children of my own, I am an artist, I speak English better than German and, in those first years in Germany, I had less work than I have now.

I am interested in children, I often had, and still have some spare time, I have shelves stacked with boxes full of arty/crafty materials, I had a video camera and even clay and a kiln, and I had a small studio in the garden. I also speak a language that the German children were just discovering. They soon began to realise its importance in their lives, especially when they began to use computers. So they liked to speak English with me and still do. We played scrabble with an English board too.

In turn the children loved helping me to learn their language and, as they got older, I helped them with their Abitur projects, learning a lot about film, wild horses, and Nürnberg's win city of Glasgow. I think that I proof-read at least five Abitur English projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

These children who played such an important role in my life are now all in their late twenties. Four of them will be thirty at their next birthday. Yes, that makes me feel old but it also gives me so much pleasure when I realise that I still have regular contact with some very special young people who always include me in the special events in their lives –

I was the only person asked to speak at my nephew’s wedding

I am often invited along with scores of young people to attend birthday parties

A young German man is involved, through his business, with the production of my books

My niece phoned me recently to make sure that I could get time off to attend her mid-week wedding next month, and I think there will be one or two more wedding invitations to come.

The special relationships that have developed with these young people have certainly contributed to the continued friendship that I have with their parents and their siblings, and I am so grateful for this. It makes a return to Germany so much easier when I know that I have family here too.

I have just had a very good reason for returning to Germany a few days earlier than I would normally have done before work starts on Monday. One of these special children in my life had invited me to her wedding.

I had no idea where I was going after I left the railway station

I followed the route that I had memorised from Googling 
earlier in the day

What a lovely surprise I got 
after just a five-minute walk

And it got better...

... and better!

A very happy day for all

There was a special moment during the reception when the bridal pair asked guests to stand up if they could answer Yes to any of the questions on their long list. They would then take this opportunity to introduce the standing guests to the rest of the party. I rose to the question “Who takes part in more sporting activity than they watch?”

As I do not attend a football match each Saturday and do not own a television I decided that this was my time to stand up, because of my daily twenty-kilometers to and from work by bike – although I felt a bit of a cheat because, while I was at home in England over the past eleven days, I spent a lot more time watching the Paralympic Games, both live on TV and live in person,  than I have riding a bike!

The groom began the introduction by saying that he had met Susie at his wife’s house often, ever since he had known the family, but had never known quite why I was there! The bride took over and she told our story and described the hours that we had spent together while her dad shared some hours making music with my partner,and she and I were creative together. I then had the opportunity to tell the others how she and her family became my German family and how very grateful I am that I have them.

It is a privilege to be part of an upbringing-team

It was the first wedding that I have attended where the guests have been introduced in this way. Not only did we get to know the people sitting opposite us rather faster than we would have done otherwise, it was also an opportunity for these newly-weds to tell everyone about the special roles that their guests had played in their upbringing and their developing lives. It also gave us, the guests, the opportunity to voice our appreciation for being allowed to take an active part in their lives.

This family again welcomed me back with open arms to the country where I choose to live. With the wedding as part of the welcoming party I was soon back into the German culture and language, and my lifestyle.

The cake culture!

I have never seen such a huge array of cakes as I saw at the wedding yesterday. 

Cakes ...

... glorious

... cakes!

And still they kept on coming!

Coffee and cakes – you cannot get much more German than that. The cakes that were on display yesterday, all created by the guests, were a treat for any creative eye, whether you enjoy eating them or not.

The mums and dads of the bride and groom where so well organised. They had anticipated that there would be cake-leftovers so there were cake-bags all ready to hand as the guests said their thank-yous and goodbyes.

Afternoon tea in my own household today will include a slice of that amazing homemade (by an auntie and cousins), wedding cake! As I drink my English tea and eat my German cake I shall be reminded of  those upbringing- and lifestyle-teams that are so important to us all.

Footnote: the Abitur

The Abitur is the German school-leavers' exam, covering all subjects and including three special ones. In some cases the special projects can be done in English if the pupil chooses. 

Cerebral palsy and ideas

'Pen felt on brown paper bags' at an exhibition of works by adults with disability at Norwich City Library.

Ideas from around the world

Funding for disability allocated so that there can be access to Conductive Education for all who would like it – this is one of the things wished for on the ideas list on the  World Cerebral Palsy Day website –

http://www.worldcpday.org/

The first world cerebral palsy day was at the beginning of this week, on 4 September, which was also day six of the Paralympic Games.

I imagine that the world that those Paralympians are living in at the moment, in London, is very far removed from the worlds of many of the people who have shared their ideas on the World Cerebral Palsy Day website. Ideas that they believe, if turned into reality, would make their lives better.   

 

No flashing cameras, roof-raising cheers, or gold, silver and bronze medals, for those who have submitted ideas that include waterproof joysticks for motorized wheelchairs, canopies, bras that do up one-handed, and the development of a worldwide education system for teaching children with cerebral palsy! 

Although no medals are being awarded, when the voting finishes at the end of this month one of the ideas will be a winner and it will be seen through to fruition during the next year.

Many of the ideas on the site would certainly benefit many people with a disability, whether cerebral palsy or otherwise, be they Paralympic sportsmen and sportswomen or not.

Perhaps there will be someone out there who will be inspired to develop some of the others ideas, those that do not make it to the top spot. Maybe for example the video made by a physiotherapist from Sri Lanka will catch someone’s attention and more people will take up the baton and continue along the road to developing a worldwide education method for children with CP!

World Cerebral Palsy Day and Conductive Education

There are one or two ideas on the list that deal with conductive education. In fact a couple of them have already received several votes.

I have included one of these ideas below, the one about allocation of funding. Something mentioned in it interests me very much and I would love to hear more about it.

‘Conductive Education provides valuable supports and training to kids with cerebral palsy during their early development stage. This program exists in Australia but due to the limitation of funding and also the lack of emphasis by the government, it has not been widely used. Hence kids do not receive the maximum benefit from Conductive Education. I have come across Countries where Conductive Education is being used as their main source of early education (from pre-school to primary) for CP kids and significant benefits can be seen. I have a kid with CP and have seen the benefit my child has gained from conductive education. I would like to see the government allocate its funding for disability more effectively in areas such as Conductive Education.’

I agree. I too would love to see funding allocated, for both children and adult, so that clients can access Conductive Education. It would be nice to see it being done in England and in Germany and in other countries in the world too, as well as in Australia.

I wonder where the writer of this idea has —

‘…come across Countries where Conductive Education is being used as their main source of early education (from pre-school to primary) for CP kids and significant benefits can be seen.’

I do hope that, if this idea wins enough votes to come in first, we will get to hear how these other countries have made this possible, and which countries they actually are. Even in Norway, where there is government funding for Conductive Education, it is a very separate part of the children’s main education.

Perhaps some of you can tell me more about this.

Where is what this idea-writer wishes for Australia actually happening?

Just-do-it-yourself

Infectious enthusiasm travels the world

I do not spent as much time as I used to surfing the net reading other blogs and websites that are connected in some way to Conductive Education, but I still have some favourites that I open up now and then to discover what is going on in other conductive communities.

One such website that I have found so inspiring and have looked at regularly is that of conductor, Eszter Agocs. Take a look and find out why -

http://www.ffce.com.au/gallery

I met Eszter in Hong Kong. She was at the 2010 World Congress for Conductive Education with a conductor colleague of hers, someone whom I knew from a few years earlier when she worked in Germany.

Yes, it is a small world this world of conduction.

I have a relative who lives not far from Ezster’s centre in Adelaide who has also met her with the hope that her family can use her services for her grandson. The world gets smaller and smaller!

Eszter made quite an impression on me when I met her. She and her colleague are both young and bubbling, full of enthusiasm and with exciting plans for their futures in the conductive world. They had that kind of enthusiasm that is so infectious that it oozes through cyberspace too. I still feel it when I open up the website to look through the pictures and read of the work at Future Footprints.

I was so delighted when, not many weeks after our meeting in Hong Kong, I discovered Eszter’s website for the centre that she opened in February 2011, in Adelaide, South Australia.

More about the furniture

Readers of my blog will know that I have a strange and changing relationship with the furniture that we have in our conductive centre. It is so very heavy, it takes up so much space when not in use and, really, I can take it or leave it. If it is there when I need it as a means of facilitation I use it, but if it is not available I use something else. This is especially true when I am working with families in their homes, where I use what is available.

Creative planning

I plan many arty activities for my groups well ahead, so that I always have something in store to fall back on in a time of need.

One of the plans that I had for 2010, that followed me into 2011 and 2012 because I had not made my deadlines, was for us to produce hand-painted furniture to auction at our summer fetes. It is still an on-going project and we are beginning to get some orders for our work based on the results of what I describe below.

Dolly Mixtures

In Eszter’s new centre she has the most wonderful furniture, all designed and made by herself and her family. At first glance it looks like the children are working and playing in a box of Dolly Mixtures! With furniture that looks like a packet of sweeties, the pastel shades make it look like they are working and playing in a fairy-story book!

Inspiration to get going

I have been planning a paint-the-furniture project at our centre for years. Not only did I want to paint the furniture, I actually wanted to put the finished products in an auction at our summer fete.

I always seemed to run out of time and the summers came and went. Then, one day in the autumn of 2011 I received a call asking whether I would still like some flat-pack chairs from the local branch of a well known Swedish furniture store.

Always ready for an arty project and very much inspired by the pictures of Eszter’s Dolly Mixture colours, I immediately said ‘Yes please’ and the chairs arrived the next day.

It was a day when all but three from seven members of our staff were sick and I was left holding the fort with two groups of children. After a bit of shuffling of people and spaces, in the end I had just five children with me, all of them very eager to assemble the Swedish flat-pack chairs that they could see stacked up in the corner.

Child’s play!

They all turned out to be experts.

Not only experts at furniture assembly but at teamwork too.

Each child not only knew exactly where their own talents lie but also knew who best to team up with to compliment their own skills. It was a joy to watch them, and watch is what I did most of the time, except when I would quickly turn a piece of wood round before it got screwed into (the wrong) place, or offered a longer tool with a handle to afford better grip.

One lad with hemiplegia was employed by all the  groups to make the final turn on the screws and an athetoid girl was the best at sorting out the order of assembly and spotting the difference between all the nuts and bolts.

We had six chairs assembled in no time at all. By the time that we went home for the day the chairs were all lined up, tried and tested, with plans being made for their decoration at a later date. My colleagues were quite astounded to see what we had achieved on a day when we were so short-staffed.

These children did not need adults to assemble furniture, just each other. One to read the instructions, one to get the bits of wood sorted, another sorting nails, another who was good with an Allen key, and another who was strong and could hold on tight.

I do not think that I have never experienced such a motivated, active bunch of children. It was a lovely experience for me and I thanked the person who turned up with the chairs at just the right moment for making what could have been a difficult, short-staffed afternoon into such a successful day for us all.

The project continued!

In the autumn of 2011 the school children were delighted that we were at last able to organise a weekend sleep-over at our conductive centre. We had a wonderful time and were incredibly busy. It was autumn and Halloween, so we were not short of inspiration for our creativity, and to top it all we had our chair project to get on with.

Upon the advice of a lovely young man at the hardware store I had purchased a huge can of white paint and four very tiny pots of highly concentrated colours.

We had all that we needed to mix just about any colour under the sun, which is exactly what we did.

Before we went to bed on the first evening of the sleep-over we had four pastel-coloured chairs. Over the course of the following months, whenever the children found the time and the motivation, they painted and stencilled away until they were satisfied with their creations. One child whose hands are not always as steady as she would like them to be printed spots on her chair with the tip of her nose!

An instant make-over

Throughout the creative period the chairs where used – after they had dried, of course!

Abandoned to the cellar were the ladder-backs.

We now had our pastel dolly-mixture chairs to sit on at the dinner table, so the dull, fifteen-years-old ladder-backs from the Pető Institute have been confined to the corner of the room (just-in-case), and some to the cellar. Our new, brightly painted chairs immediately changed the atmosphere in our group room through their vibrancy of colour and flair. They also attract many comments and now –

Orders flowing are in!

When we had a festival in July to celebrate the roofing of the new Kindergarten the Boss of the association, of which our conductive work is just a small part, came into our room and noticed our lovely chairs around the table. She immediately wanted to have one to give to the building firm as a thank-you present,  but I told her that she would have a lot of explaining to do if one of the children arrived the next to find their chair was missing!

She of course understood this immediately and said that she would send us some more flat packs from the well-known Swedish store as soon as she could, so that we could get creative on some more chairs to use in the Association as gifts and to auction off at fund-raising events. 

And now the stroke group get roped in!

Something else that I have been waiting for from that same store, something for the group-room, is a small flat-pack step-ladder. We wanted it for the children who are just a little bit too short to use the kitchen. With two ladder-back chairs beside it it is ideal for some of the children. I had tested one from the Kindergarten group a long time ago and at long last ours arrived.

The children were delighted and unpacked the box with glee. They soon had the cartoon-like instructions in their hands and the nuts and bolts all sorted. It was not long before they realised that this time they needed more elbow-grease than any of them could supply and the whole package was left all sorted out for the arrival of our stroke group the next morning.

It was interesting to see how that group worked together.

The one lady in the group took on the role of observer. She made sure that everything flowed according to plan. I had warned them all just before they started, before I retreated to another part of the room, that there were a few tricky pieces, similar bits of wood with holes in different places, that they should be aware of.

I learnt as much from this adult furniture-building session as I had done from the session with the children. I was not at all surprised to see who it was who took charge of the group, in a kind and encouraging way, not doing it all himself but knowing that he had the better fine motor skills to do the work.

He and one of the other men were so patient with a third man who kept insisting, despite having the instruction sheet in front of him with its very clear pictorial instructions, that the second side panel should be attached before the steps were all inserted. Our female group member was able to explain to him the reason why they were still not ready for that piece but I observed that he still kept offering the same piece several times before he realised what needed to be done first.

I love it when we introduce such practical tasks to the sessions. The clients are so highly motivated, both the children and the adults, to show off all their skills and their ability to work as a team. I am not sure whether it is not I who learns the most from these moments, especially when the clients are so good at the task in hand that I can take a back seat and observe their conversations, notice who helps whom and how, and who asked who for help and why!

I am really grateful that we have this certain Swedish furniture store just around the corner that has such good-value products that are useful to us and come with child- and disability-friendly instruction sheets. We supply a few extra tools from the box-full that we have accumulated over the years of conductive work. It is full of long spanners and keys that had come with long-since-out-of-use leg and foot splints and bicycles.

The next stage

When the next flat-packs arrive I shall organise a joint venture. Adults and children joining forces, coming together to enjoy an action-packed, furniture-making creative experience!

Then next summer I will get all our clients out there at the summer fete auctioning off their wares!

But first a different celebration

We already have another creative project in hand.

We have been asked to make costumes for a Golden Jubilee fashion parade that will take place at the end of this month to celebrate fifty years of the Association that the conductive department belongs to!

There is never a dull moment in our conductive lives! 

Just once in a Blue Moon - London 2012



'Its blue!'
The second full moon in August. 
August 31, 2012 by Susie Mallett

A Blue Moon event!

The Blue Moon did not appear orange as the first full moon of the month had –

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2012/08/spontaneous-infectious-excitement.html

 But it was not blue either!

I caught the first full moon on camera as I cycled home from work in Nürnberg on a gorgeous summer evening when the temperature was still about thirty degrees Celsius.

I was very lucky to catch a shot of the Blue Moon at all as it peeped out between the English rain-clouds on a very dark evening that had a distinct feel of autumn about it.

I have my fingers crossed for fairer weather for my less-than-once in a Blue-Moon trip to the Paralympics on Monday. My excitement mounts and it is lovely to be in the country, and occasionally in front of a television, to catch some of the Olympic excitement.

I can also get up to date with the names of athletes and various sports that are new to me so that I am a little more knowledgeable when I get off the 05.30 train from Norwich at Stratford and make my way to the Olympic Stadium. As I wrote most of this I read online that Oscar Pistorious had set a new 200 metres world record knocking almost one-and-a-half seconds off the old one but later he got beaten to silver medal position in the final.

I cannot wait to sit in that stadium and hear the roar of the crowds.

I cannot imagine when I will ever get the chance to attend a Paralympic Games again, at the moment Rio seems a long way away! So I will certainly make the most of my once-in-a-Blue-Moon experience on September 3, 2012. 

It is The East Coast Truckers time again

It is that time of year again 

I was really lucky to be at home again to experience the East Coast Truckers' trip to Lowestoft —

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/08/raising-smiles.html

Armed with my cup of tea to drink, an umbrella just in case of rain, flags to fly, and a hankerchief to wipe the wet eyes, I joined my Dad and many neighbours in giving these truckers and their very special passengers the send-off that they deserve. 

The annual trip to the seaside is organised by the drivers of huge articulated trucks. They have spent the past two years in negotiations with many of the local and borough councils, and the police, in order to secure the future of this wonderful occasion. An annual outing that bring smiles of delight to the faces of children and families with special needs, and brings both smiles and tears of emotion to the spectators that line the route.

I am especially moved when a child, who looks so tiny in the cab of such a monster truck, looks directly at me, grows in stature and waves like crazy. 

The noise of all those horns as they travel the thirty-odd miles to the east coast of Norfolk and Suffolk is almost deafening.

As the convoy, this year with 87 splendid trucks, begins in the County-Hall car park that is actually right at the end of Dad’s garden, we can hear exactly when it is time for us to step out on to the doorstep and begin waving until our arms ache. 

In a row of houses with no front gardens and where there are no buildings on the opposite side of the road, it makes for a great opportunity for the neighbours actually to meet each other for a change and have an early morning chat.  

At the end of the day the tired but happy travellers return from their day-trip just as it is getting dark and this time, as well as the wonderful cacophony of horns sounding, there is also a festival of lights on the front of each cab.

Dad, Sis and I all waved just a little bit harder in memory of my Mum. Mum would never have missed this occasion for the world. She was always out there to wave to one family in particular, some of my very early clients who loved her and enjoyed many visits in her amazing garden.   

A mine of information and always a really interesting read

"Creative moments", June 2012

Annoyances

I am using my little Netbook at the moment and for some reason my email in this account is set up differently from the version on my bigger laptop.

This is sometimes annoying as I have to scroll through a whole list of emails, all from one person, before I reach the next unopened mail. Then, having read that one, do the same for the next, and the next, and the next!

I know that there must be a simple explanation and a way to alter this and I am still clicking here, there and everywhere in the hope that one day I shall find it. (I am doing the same amount of clicking on the other computer in order to discover how to stop it reverting to red ink each time I press Send!)

On the Netbook I suspect that the reason that I have problems in finding what I need to click on is because the screen is small and the Netbook so slow that the full version does not appear. I soon get used to it and after a week I almost do not notice it anymore.

Advantages

There is one great advantage of having a whole list of emails to scroll through. I am always reminded that I still have so much to read from one the blogs that I follow and value very much –

dean’s stroke musings,  http://oc1dean.blogspot.co.uk/

Every day at just after midnight I receive an email that sends me the content of the latest posting on this site. I rarely delete these from my email account as this means that I have instant access to the information without being online and always have something to read. I can then make a note reminding myself to click on any links referred to in the postings that interest me most so that I can read more the next time that I get a good enough internet connection. 

Catching up

Catching up, that is what I have been doing this summer-holiday, camping-weather morning. Whether it is the cats-and-dogs rain that prevents good Internet access or being in the worst reception area in the city, (so the computer experts tell me), I do not know, but whatever the reason it has been nice to go through dean’s musings on stroke and pick out some interesting thing to catch up on the next time that a walk around Cyberspace is open to me.

As I have recommended before on this blog, take an occasional look at dean’s musings, it is well worth taking the time.