The Only Thing That Interferes With Learning Is Education.
Education
Our education centres provide services to individuals with learning disabilities, through the stages of infancy, childhood and adolescence.
Support is offered through the services available at the inspire education centre, which also reaches out to the mainstream schools and the family environment, in order to achieve full inclusion in the society. The focus is the client’s potential and its further development.
Below are the four main educational programmes offered. Hover over each one and click to learn more.
Once a client is diagnosed as having a learning disability he is referred to the Parent And Client Educational Services (PACES) within Inspire. PACES, meets the individual and specific needs of these persons from birth and continues to support the individual up until he/she is in any educational setting. Through an Individualized Family Support Plan, specialised intervention is drawn up by a multidisciplinary team effort to revolve around the student and the family. Through weekly home-visiting sessions, the tutor integrates and implements the recommendations made by all the professionals. These sessions can happen at home, school or community. Except in the case of infants, therapeutic input is delivered at the centre where the use of different facilities such as the multi-sensory rooms is accessed. Monthly After-School Groups are also offered across the ages. At PACES we firmly believe that the parents as well as all professionals / immediate carers working with the student need to be working alongside each other so as to ensure that there is continuity in care as well as maximum benefits from goals targeted.
The Structured Training and Education Programme (STEP) is a specialised programme for children with difficulties on the autism spectrum. At STEP, highly individualised, specialised programmes are delivered that are built on evidence based practice, and strive to support not only the child but also the family and school. This is done through the programme’s open door policy that encourages parents and school personnel to come to STEP and see exactly what, why and how it is possible to make an impact on the lives of their children.
The STEP programme is offered through a multi-disciplinary team made up of tutors who are supported by the speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists. Parents are considered to be key members of the team and work alongside the tutors and the other professionals. Their commitment and cooperation are considered to play a major part in the child’s progress. Parents are an integral part of their child’s assessment and teaching, constantly providing information about their child’s needs, behaviour, interests and dislikes, and also voicing their own concerns and priorities for their child. Ultimately, STEP supports Inspire’s commitment to inclusion for all, while providing support for those pupils for whom inclusion is not a straightforwardly achievable objective.
Specialised Training for Youths’ Lifestyle Enhancement (STYLE) is a specialised programme that caters for adolescents who have autism. Keeping in mind that autism is a spectrum disorder; there is a wide range of variation in the way it affects people, thereby making the needs of each person unique. The programme focuses on the students’ potential and their further development with the underlying objective being to help the student to become more functional, thus enhancing his or her quality of life.
The programme’s main aim is to give the students the opportunity to acquire a better understanding of the necessity of social skills and to rehearse such skills in a safe and supportive environment. The students benefit from weekly individual sessions where various age appropriate areas of development are addressed. In addition, through group sessions, that are occasionally held in the community, the aim is to help the students to transfer and generalise the acquired skills to different social situations and settings. An important aspect of the STYLE programme is the continuation between the work carried out at Inspire and at school, thus ensuring continuity of intervention and liaison amongst the students’ team of support.