Therapy Services for 80 Cambodian Families

People with disabilities often face barriers which prevent them from participating in the life of their communities. The ABLE project works to remove the barriers that prevent children with disabilities from entering into family-based alternative care and making these systems more inclusive.  

Community attitudes can often be one of the biggest barriers to inclusion of people with disabilities. Fear or stigma attached to disability can make a community less inclusive and keep people with disabilities isolated. In such an environment it may seem impossible to recruit a family willing to foster a child with disabilities who is not related to them, and even the sustainability of kinship care can be threatened by negative community sentiment.

What we have learned from our experience is that we don't need to look for inclusive communities, we just need to look for inclusive families who can pave the way for making their community more inclusive. Within any community there are people who think differently, who have had different experiences which make them more willing to take on the challenges that come with caring for a child with disabilities. By identifying the kind of families who are willing to take on the role of being a foster family, and then equipping them for that role, we help them to become community advocates. The experience of watching a family care for a child with disabilities breaks down barriers for others in the communities and begins to make the communities more inclusive. It leads to other families expressing a willingness to care for a child with a disability.

Since our last report...

In December, we reported that we were looking to recruit another physiotherapist and that they were in short supply. We can announce that we have hired a physiotherapist, named Chet Aom, who has recently graduated from the country's only physiotherapy training program. She will start mid-March. We have also enrolled two new children into the ABLE Project, both of whom are in Children In Families' Kinship Care project, bringing the total number of children in the project up to 49. 

During January and February the Better Care Network filmed an interview with Srey Ny Sorn, ABLE's project manager, and Lisa Yunker, one of ABLE's technical advisers to share their learning. This video will be completed soon and will be available via the Better Care Network's website to allow other family-based alternative care organizations to benefit from the experiences of the Children In Families' ABLE team. 

Srey Ny is speaking this week at a UNHRC side event on preventing unnecessary separation and institutionalisation of children with disabilities. We are grateful to share the lessons we have learnt about how to create inclusive communities that support children with disabilities and the families that care for them. We look forward to learning from the other organisations represented at this event and together, see children with disabilities thriving in loving families and communities. To find out more, follow our facebook page.

Thank you for your continued support. We cannot do this work without the generosity of partners like you.

With Much Thanks,

Lisa Yunker (ABLE Technical Advisor at Children in Families)

Links:

• https://www.facebook.com/ChildrenInFamilies/