The Early Childhood Development Team arrived in San Pedro Sula late Saturday evening, after a rather bumpy flight. This year’s team includes 5 new members, bringing new excitement and energy to the group. Sunday morning found three quarters of the team zip lining across Pulapanzak waterfalls. Nothing like starting a very intellectual week with an adrenaline rush!
After a tour of the Barnabas House complex and meeting the four cardiac surgery patients that have already arrived for surgeries next week, the team got to work. The newbies had a pseudo-pill counting experience stuffing folders with information to be used during the two-day Community Leader training. This training begins tomorrow…stay tuned for details.
FOB's new Early Childhood Development Program has a three tiered focus.
Training FOB partner Community leaders and other grassroots volunteers to perform simple age appropriate developmental screenings. This will help to identify children in remote communities who are not reaching their developmental milestones.
Referring those children identified with delays to appropriate therapy or treatment resources, through the FOB Extended Care Program.
Training Honduran medical professionals about the importance of early childhood screening, as well as the latest research in treatment and intervention.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with FOB Community Health nurse Pascuala, discussing the accomplishments that have been made since this program began last year. Pascuala shared that there are 5 communities doing developmental screenings on a regular basis, and they have screened over 100 children. She also presented several cases that she wanted to have evaluated by the team. Everyone was overjoyed with all that was being done to help this program get off to a good start. Details of tomorrow’s training were completed, using input from Pascuala on what was working well and what needed improvement.
We also got to celebrate a birthday on the team! Happy birthday to Julie - we're so glad you're sharing your birthday with us and with the kids of Honduras!
We covet your prayers as we continue to mold and shape a program that has the potential for wide-reaching change for all the children of Honduras.
