Services

The majority of families who have a child with a disability are forced to choose between the many treatments and medical services for their child because of money and time pressures. Families have to pay for expensive medicine and services including: doctor’s visits, surgeries and frequent brain scans, physical therapy, adaptive therapy, integration therapy, and psychomotor therapy, along with the costs of transport to and from each specialized place. In addition to cost considerations, all these appointments take up time which usually means parents taking time off work. We found that speech therapy is frequently the first treatment to be sacrificed, so many children don’t end up ever learning to speak or use basic communication. For that reason, Voces de Guiraa’ first began by focusing on offering services in speech therapy.

We found that speech therapy is frequently the first treatment to be sacrificed, so many children don’t end up ever learning to speak or use basic communication.

Over time, and as we became closer with the families, we realized that many of them are in need of services beyond speech therapy. Most of the parents we work with are single mothers, as it’s unfortunately common for the fathers to leave once they find out that their child has a disability. Three of the single mother families we currently work with have more than one child with disabilities. Other services provided beyond speech therapy are:

• Support and referrals for free professional resources for women who have been victims of violence and domestic abuse.
• Payments for specialized neurologist visits and help with fulfilment of medical prescriptions.
• Organized support for mothers, such as psychologist visits and classes.
• Management of donations to purchase learning materials for classes and stimulation.
• Clothes drives to provide clothing for children and families during winter months.
• Donations for transport to and from speech therapy classes and doctor’s visits.
• Several donors contribute money for a group class on Saturdays which helps with socialization between the children, and is also a training program for teachers to become potential speech therapists for the program.
• Programming and administration of CBD oil for several of the children who have seizures. Guiraa’ has been able to buy CBD oil in bulk and administers it in the proper doses at a cheaper price in conjunction with a doctor’s prescription and oversight.
• We serve children who don’t necessarily have disabilities but are delayed because of lack of education, and malnutrition. One of our donors gives money for us to buy a family groceries, while Guiraa’ gives free one-on-one parenting and speech classes to the mother and child. We have worked with a local pediatrician who donated their time to help the family get enrolled in a government aide program, and now the child is now eligible for free healthcare.
• Funding and organization of group activities. Most of the children in the program have socialization issues because of their disabilities, and their family’s wishes are for them to have friends. We recently organized a Reading Day event, where we donated books and arranged for a children’s author to host. This was the first time the children in the program met each other (since the weekly classes are one-on-one) and more importantly, the mothers got to connect with one another for the first time. We saw them developing their own support networks and find strength in each others shared stories and struggles. The event was a huge success and we have been asked to do this more frequently.

The program swiftly developed from being a fund for children with special needs to receive specific assistance, to being a more holistic and community-based program. We want to help these kids learn to communicate but also continue to develop community-based strategies to support parents by listening to their needs and desires.