Chester Sam­bra­no

Caribbean Kids and Fam­i­lies Ther­a­py Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CK­FTO) will send two Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­pists (OTs) to Texas next week to com­plete train­ing in Autism Di­ag­nos­tic Ob­ser­va­tion Sched­ule (ADOS).

The TT$37,000 part­ner­ship with the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion will go to­ward costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the train­ing, the pur­chase of ADOS test­ing kits, and hav­ing some chil­dren as­sessed.

This in­ter­ven­tion will help ad­dress the ris­ing need for this ser­vice lo­cal­ly.

In a me­dia re­lease, The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion’s Head of Op­er­a­tions Cindyann Cur­ren­cy shared, “We are thrilled to work with CK­FTO on this as­pect of their pro­gramme. Di­ag­no­sis will help im­prove the qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion and the gen­er­al well-be­ing of chil­dren who are as­sessed. For their fam­i­lies, this op­por­tu­ni­ty can change a child’s life tra­jec­to­ry, and we’re so hap­py to be on this jour­ney with them.”

The Foun­da­tion said the fall­out from school clo­sures and lock­downs dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has dou­bled the de­mand for ed­u­ca­tion­al and pae­di­atric ther­a­py ser­vices.

It said psy­choe­d­u­ca­tion­al as­sess­ment and di­ag­no­sis are need­ed for stu­dents seek­ing spe­cial con­ces­sions for the SEA, oth­er school ex­ams or ac­cess to some so­cial ser­vices.

It added that in­creased ac­cess to as­sess­ment and di­ag­no­sis tools such as ADOS is nec­es­sary for the suc­cess of chil­dren with neu­ro­di­ver­gence such as Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der (ASD) or At­ten­tion Deficit/Hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (AD­HD).

The Foun­da­tion ex­plained that af­ter this train­ing, CK­FTO’s Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­pists Christo­pher Ris­tic and Car­oli­na Calles Everdi­um, who have more than a decade of ex­pe­ri­ence be­tween them, will be the first qual­i­fied OTs to di­ag­nose chil­dren with Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der (ASD). Sofia Figueroa-Leon, Vice-Chair of the CK­FTO Board of Di­rec­tors, is en­thu­si­as­tic that this ad­di­tion­al train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will help the NGO bet­ter serve their young clients.

CK­FTO pro­vides af­ford­able ther­a­peu­tic ser­vices to chil­dren with spe­cial needs, spe­cial­is­ing in a wide range of pae­di­atric screen­ing/as­sess­ments and cus­tomised re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion so­lu­tions de­liv­ered by an in­ter-pro­fes­sion­al team of oc­cu­pa­tion­al, speech, phys­i­cal ther­a­pists and ed­u­ca­tors.

The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion said it con­tin­ues to build part­ner­ships with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as CK­FTO to im­prove op­por­tu­ni­ties for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.