SHARING IS CARING

Sharing is caring for sure. With this motto Save the Children (SCI) organized an experience-sharing-meeting between the specialists from Emili Aregak Day Care Center for Children with Multiple Disabilities in Gyumri and our “Community Based Service for People with Disabilities” (MACF) Project Partner Organizations (Armavir Development Center NGO (ADC) and Full Life (FL) NGO).

The aim of the meeting was to share a range of supportive services provided by these organizations to the children with special need in Armenia (mainly in Gymri, Armavir and Yerevan) which help children to be integrated children into the society and be equally treated.

During the meeting SCI, ADC and FL NGOs specialists represented their two “Independent Life Support” comprehensive centers for children with special needs (ages 3-18) and their parents recently established within SCI MACF project. During the past months our specialists from partner organizations have been actively explore the main aim and implementation ways of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health known more commonly as ICF framework (note* ICF is the World Health Organization (WHO) framework for measuring health and disability at both individual and population levels). 

Being a know-how in Armenian society ICF framework would help us not only to measure health outcomes and guide disability management in infectious disease programs, but also to improve disability statistics especially among children having disability by using the ICF framework.

Furthermore, our specialists presented their results they already have while using the ICF framework. They also have shared with the main principals of functional status assessment, goal setting and treatment planning and monitoring, as well as outcome measurement they have used at our “Independent Life Support” comprehensive centers.

At the same time, the specialists from Emili Aregak (Sunny) Center have expressed their eagerness to get acquainted with ICF framework. They have also shared about their supportive services of integrating children with special needs and their families into society so that they would be treated equally.   

It should be mentioned also that at these very moments Emili Aregak Center provides services to 40 children (ages 5-15) with multiple disabilities living in Gyumri, while Save the Children “Independent Life Support” comprehensive centers offer developmental services to more than 150 children with special needs (ages 3-18).