Children's Independent Living Skills Workshop
Mandy Gibbons, NCBI’s Community Resource Worker in Waterford recently teamed
up with Victoria Elliott, Child Mobility Officer with Irish Guide Dogs to provide independent living skills to young girls in Waterford.
In April Victoria Elliott, Child Mobility Officer with Irish Guide Dogs, and I worked in partnership to provide an independent living skills workshop to three children in the Waterford region. We wanted to provide an opportunity for a small group of children to come together to meet other children with a sight impairment, and to actively participate in the sessions, where not only would they show us and each other the skills they already had, but could learn new ones and above all to have some fun, along the way!
Clues in Braille
We spent a lot of time discussing the purpose of our proposed workshops; what we hoped to achieve; the activities that would enable the children to learn new transferrable skills, and, of course, which children to invite. We invited three girls ranging from 6 to 10-years and as the children were on the Easter break we thought that we would incorporate this theme. We had a treasure hunt where the girls had clues in Braille and they had to find the items that we would be using throughout the day. We then practised pouring, using a variety of materials, spreading, cutting and then moving on to the children making shredded wheat nests complete with little eggs and fluffy yellow chicks. Fortunately the sun was shining so we loaded up our picnic basket and had our lunch, which the girls had made for themselves, in the garden, and the day finished with an Easter egg hunt.
The second day consisted of the children making omelette and potato wedges, where they all cracked and whisked eggs, chopped potatoes and grated cheese with much enthusiasm and gusto! They also made butterfly cakes, mixing up the butter icing and decorating their buns with chocolate drops, sprinkles and Barbie sparkles.
Doing things together
The two days were a great success. It was lovely to see these three children, who did not know each other, spending time doing things together. Spending time with the children gave me the opportunity to observe their orientation, mobility, skills, general attitude and personality, in addition to observing the areas where they may benefit from a bit more support. Victoria and I hope to plan more sessions for other blind and vision impaired children and young people as the year progresses.