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Praktikken:
Da der er en del, der spørges til min praktik hernede, har jeg valgt at ligge en del af min studieplan ud. Det er godt nok på engelsk, men det fortæller lidt om stedet, og det jeg lavet der.
Description of the organization
Red Hill Special School is a school for children with disabilities in the age of 5 to 18 years. There are six categories of impairments within Education Queensland. They are intellectual impairment, physical impairment, hearing impairment, vision impairment, speech language impairment and autism. The children at Red Hill often have a combination of the impairments. Some of the student even specialised health needs, that the teachers need to take care of too, for example they need to be gastro fed. The children are divided into juniors, middle, senior for the boys and senior for the girls.
The school also has a ECDP (Early Childhood Development Program ) section for children in the age of birth to 6 years old, which are divided into groups based on their age. I am involved in 3 groups. Group 1 comes Monday and Tuesday, the children here mostly have autism. Group 2 comes Wednesday, the children here also have autism but are higher functional then group 1.Group 3 comes Thursday and Friday, this group of children have physical and intelligence disabilities . The children are in ECDP to find observe their level of functions in different areas for example social, intelligence and verbal. The observations are used to determine what needs they have concerning school. Where the children are in this process varies from the ones who doesn't have a diagnoses yet to the ones, who already have a diagnoses and spends some days doing the week in a normal school class. This is called a dual placement.
In all of the classes at the school there are about 6 children, 1-2 teachers and 1-2 teachers aids depending on the amount of the needs of the children. Beside the teachers and the teachers aids the school have a music teacher, music therapist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist and two nurses employed to help the children, work with them and to do observations of their progresses.
At the school there are playgrounds, a little library, a indoor pool and a sense room for the children to use for joy and for stimulation. Most of the classes also do things outside the classroom; they go to the shops, horse riding, the park and so on.
All the children have their individual goals, which teachers try to reach together with them. These are documents in a Individual Education Plan (IEP). The teachers observe their progress and evaluates this to make new goals.
The school is financed by the government, so the only thing they have to pay for, is a small annual fee for transport. The school is allowed to fundraise their own money, which they sometimes do. This money they use for toys and other things the teachers can use to educate the children.
Introduction
Kate Russ, who is our placement supervisor, contacted us by email while we still were in Denmark. She helped us get in contact with three other Danish student, who are taking their trainee at Red Hill too. They study for social education, which is different to social worker, but it is very good to have other Danes to talk to and discuss the events at the school with. Furthermore Kate offered her help in any way, wished us a good trip to Australia and wrote that everyone at the school was looking forward to meet us. All this meant that we felt welcome at the school before even being there.
We arrived in Brisbane some days before September the 1.st, so one of the other Danes, who we live together with, took us along to the school and introduced us the Kate. She was very glad to meet us, and we decided, that we would come back the next day. Here she had better time for a tour around the school and a meeting with us. At the tour the next day we met a lot of the teachers, saw the school ad had a very good meeting, where we talk a little bit about our expectations for the trainee. We are the first social work student they have at the school, so everything is very new for them too. We decided that, we would start Monday the 31st of August, that we doing the weekend would decide which class we would like to join and that we would have the next meeting after a week, so we could get a chance to see, what that school all is about before making any other agreements.
They preferred us to choose ECDP or middle, because there already was Danish students in the other classes. I chose ECDP, which I think gives me a chance to meet more children and thereby follow more cases. I have always been a interested in autism, so ECDP can also give me a chance to learn more about this.
The second meeting with Kate was Friday the. 11.th of September, it was delayed a few days because of her being ill. At the meeting we had a very good talk about, what we can do to make the trainee more social work minded instead of social education minded. She had some good suggestions. We are going to join some of the other activities that happens at and in cooperation with the school.
My preconception of the placement was, that it would be very social education minded and knew that it would be a challenge to make it social work minded. But I think the combination of us and Kate being very open minded and Kate´s suggestions will make it work.
Tasks in the classes
In the morning when the children in ECDP comes to school, they come to the playground. Most of them comes with their parent and often they stay and chat for a short while, which gives us a chance to know, how the children are. When all the children are there, we go to the classroom.
The day consist of sections of group and individual education, morning tea, music class, breaks at the playground, lunch and quiet time. This is not the order, the days varies. My function in the class is a bit similar to teachers aids, I help where I can. I help getting the children to stay sitting and participate in the educations sections. I do some of the education and exercises with them. I help them eat, do their jobs and take them to the toilet.
When I have the third group, I join some of the children when they go to music therapy. I take one of the girls to the library and together we find a new book for her to borrow. And Friday the group goes down to the pool, and I join them for their swim. They enjoy the water a lot.
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