 Hello, and welcome to the midday update for today, Thursday, the 30th of July, 2020. My name is Jesse Leons. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're listening on air and online, a special welcome to you for St. Lucian's, the residents in St. Lucia, as well as St. Lucian's in the diaspora, a welcome to you as well. This morning, this afternoon, sorry, we do have scheduled for you a disability forum, and we do have the panelists who are already seated in studio. But in the meantime, I just want to alert you to some breaking news emerging from the Ministry of Health and Wellness today, St. Lucia records case number 25 of COVID-19. On Thursday, July 30th, the Ministry of Health and Wellness received results of a positive COVID-19 case. The individual is an 86-year-old male patient with a history of diabetes, high blood pressure investigated for prostate cancer with a history of surgery two weeks ago. He was transferred to the respiratory hospital on July 26th, 2020, with fever and a shortness of breath. He is presently in the intensive care unit at the respiratory hospital for management and care. The team has commenced investigations and contact tracing to establish the source and contain transmission. Updated information will be provided as received. And we go back to our scheduled order of the afternoon, the disability talk, live on NTN today. We invite you to share this live, whether you are watching on Facebook or the YouTube channel. We do invite you to share so that friends of friends of friends and St. Lucia at large can understand what services are available to persons affected by disability in St. Lucia. As part of its objective to increase information dissemination to persons, parents and caregivers affected by disability, the advocates' linking, resilience and movement, that is the ALRM group, has scheduled today's forum. And at this point in time, I would like to introduce to you the panellists for today. We have Ms. Zanik Edwards. She is the ALRM advocates' linking, resilience, movement facilitator. We have Ms. Tanzia Tussier from the Department of Social Transformation, Dr. Olu, Olu Ogun Lusi from the Ministry of Health and Wellness Community Pediatrician, and from the Department of Education, Special Education Officer, we have Mr. Dale Seishist. A wonderful afternoon to you all. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. First off, I want to start with you, Ms. Edwards. If you could just establish for us what the ALRM group is all about and its mandate in essence. Okay. So as you said, it's a group of advocates linking all persons impacted by disability to different resources locally and regionally and to help build resilience as we move towards change in Senusia where disability is consumed. We came about, it was a group for us, for four facilitators, and we realized that we already engage in the public in terms of raising awareness where disability is concerned. So we figured if we come together, we can create a greater force and have more impact, reaching more persons in terms of raising awareness, showing others individual's ability versus their disability. Okay. And can you just give us an outline of the effort so far, the successes, achievements so far? So recently in the midst of COVID, we decided to start our support group. In terms of virtually that is adopting protocol, of course, our turnout was low and this is one of the reasons why we wanted to get our name out there as well. So parents can know that this is happening right now and in terms of getting support from professionals, educators, different types of therapies for their development as an individual and as a parent of a child with special needs. Okay. And now I move to the question, what services are available for persons who are affected by disability in St. Lucia? Perhaps you can redirect to that question. Okay. So that is why we carefully chose our partners today, right? We have a representative from education, from health, and from the social aspect. So let's start with Mr. Sejis from education. All right. Well the Department of Education, particularly through the special education unit, seeks to provide educational support for children with special needs within the education sector. So my unit, the special education unit, plays a major role in providing assessments of special needs. In addition to that, my unit is responsible for supervising the five special education centers around the island, giving guidance and support and suggestions of appropriate interventions for students within the community of persons with special educational needs. Okay. And just tell us what the assessment has been so far in terms of persons who are requiring special education in St. Lucia. What are the challenges so far experienced? What triumphs have you experienced as well from your office? Well, like many other countries around the world, we are seeing a mushrooming of cases of autism spectrum disorder. So this is one of the fastest growing areas of special needs support emerging within the education sector. And as I said, this is a global trend, and St. Lucia is not exempt from that experience. We have also quite a number of students who are presenting with general learning difficulties. And in many cases, we are not able to pin it down to any particular cause, but we are finding that there are many cases of global deficits. I should also say that we are discovering quite a few students who have normal intelligence and who are developing typically otherwise, but who have specific learning difficulties, particularly in the area of reading. So we are discovering quite a number of cases of dyslexia that students are presenting with. With that condition, there is a very specific and narrow difficulty that students have decoding text. And as a result of that, they have reading difficulties. Okay. And with that, I move over to Dr. Ogulusi. My apologies. We've been practicing this name for the longest while. And Dr. Ogulusi, good morning to you, good afternoon to you. If you could just go over, he did indicate that's a lot of the cases, not understanding the particular cause perhaps. Can you just speak to some of the cases that you so far have seen of disability in St. Lucia, not just learning disabilities, but disabilities in general, and how your ministry so far has been trying to deal with and accommodate to these cases? Okay. So disability really is just an inability to do some certain functions. And like you have rightly said, there are so many of them around. It ranges from physical disability to learning disability, which Mr. Seji talked about, and to even involving disability in use of sense, maybe in hearing and seeing and mental disability. And many of them, you know, start from they were born with it. That's congenital. And sometimes we may be able to see the sign. Some of them seen immediately after birth or as a child grows up. So the ones that we have seen that is common, we have seen some of the congenital disability in which the child is born with and they range in different things. Some of them are problems with the genetics, the way the baby is formed. And the common ones that everybody will know is Down syndrome, which is trisomy 21, and we see all the other forms of Down promosoma abnormalities. Some of them we also see children with what we call spinal bifida, which is a defect in the formation of the spine, the way it is closed, and then it could come with some other associated deformity like hydrocephalus. Some of them we have seen a lot of cerebral palsy, which has varying causes, some unknown, some start while the baby is in utero, some start during the process of delivery and can even result from events after delivery. So we have a lot of cerebral palsy. And this is just a disorder of postural and movement, and we will see this more as a physical disability, the way the child walks, the way the child, you know, the problem of postural and movement. And like he rightly said, we've seen a lot of children with autism too, and then intellectual disability, we see quite some of them, maybe because of their awareness, we have seen many of them they are coming out. Now, what services are the things that we do for them? The first thing is we need to make the diagnosis right, so to know what it is, and that will involve the medical team. Like I said, some of them when they are born, we could see the features like down syndrome. Some of them we could even get a hint while in utero, like the events that happens during pregnancy. If we see a mother who is exposed to alcohol, then we are on the lookout or during investigation, one of the tests, maybe ultrasound, picked up something, and then so we have a hint before they are born, and then when they are born, we go ahead to make diagnosis. But quite some of them too, we need time. It takes time for the features to develop. The child may look perfectly normal at birth and discharge home. But as they grow up, then we see the features of this disability manifested. And the services available for them is when we make the diagnosis, then we determine what type of disability the child has, and some of them we may need, usually their management is multidisciplinary, even in the medical section. So we may need the orthopedic surgeon to come in, the physical therapies, the occupational therapies, the neurosurgeon. Some of them may need surgery to help to cope, live a better life. And some of them may be the psychologists. We have to refer them to the psychologists for behavioral therapy. And depending on what area of the disability we refer them, there is, we have a non-profit organization in St. Lucia, which has been very, very helpful in taking care of these children. And that is the Child Developmental Guidance Center. It is a non-profit organization that help in a comprehensive assessment of children with disability, and then provide therapy and follow up in management of these children. Okay, and a lot of the surgeries and treatment that you mentioned, it's associated with a lot of money. And now I just hand over to the representative from the Ministry of Social Transformation. Good afternoon, I'm Tansia Toussaint. If you could just speak to us about the services that are available, as we open, of course, the services that are available from your departments in terms of providing support for individuals living with a disability, supporting someone with a disability, and so on. Okay, well, we're not the Ministry of Finance, by the way. But in 2014, one of the things that we recognize under the whole social protection agenda and looking at the social protection floor is that of social inclusion. And what we recognize is the Ministry needed to, because of that mandate, we needed to have started including a lot of those persons with disabilities in our planning and in our programming. So in 2014, we brought in the Child Disability Grant. We've done tremendous work with the Child Disability Grant, and I must say from the onset that it was all part of the work of, not before Dr. Obolusi, Dr. Byrd, and also Dr. Gardner from the Child Guidance Development Center. They're the pediatricians that work with us, with children with disabilities. So what happens is there's a great partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Justice in terms of bringing that collaboration together. Children are identified and they're screened by the Ministry of Health through these two centers, either through the primary healthcare with Dr. Obolusi or through Dr. Gardner and the Child Guidance Center. Their parents of these children receive a grant and it is a universal grant. So it's not to say that it's not targeted, it's universal, it's open to anybody. So anybody who has a child with disability could access the grant. The grant is $200 monthly. And so far, we have a total of at least 410 children with disabilities. We have been able to capture through our database, which is good. One of the things that we hope coming out of this is that through this database, we now want to compile a register, a national register for persons with disabilities. Because one of the problems we're having is that not just at the child or looking at the children with disabilities, but we're not able to capture adequately the adults living with disabilities. So under our public assistance program, we have some of the adults, but we need a register to capture the adults so that you know how do you respond to them, especially when you're dealing with issues, social protection issues, issues of shock response, and how it is that you can access those people in times of disaster or in times of urgent need. I know everybody is excited because this month, from the month of July, the child disability grant has increased by $100. So now they are in receipt of $300 monthly for those who are in receipt of the child disability grant. For those who are not, because there is a specific criteria, and it's not everybody that presents one form of disability, that if we could put everybody into the basket, then that would have been fantastic. But we look at the most critical in terms of those who can access the grant. It does not mean that we ignore the others. The others are still within our database, and whatever their needs are, we try to supplement and complement it whenever we can and how we can. So it may mean that a mother may be in dire need of just diapers for the child, for that school term, or just enrollment, enrollment in a school program, and we try as much as possible to work with the parent to do that. It may mean just by paying the school term for this year or for next year. But give them as much assistance and not leaving them out because you want to make sure that they are part and parcel of the whole development process like any normal child. We do things with the adults, but it is more in terms of the cash transfer grant, so that when the children get to the age of 21, they are no longer children. So we have to classify them now universally as adults, and for that we now embrace them under the public assistance program. So we can't, it's not a case where we could actually, it's a difficult group to exit or graduate from a cash transfer program because they will always have needs. So these are some of the things that the ministry do as well as linking them with existing services, whether it's under the Ministry of Health, through the SSDF, and other agencies or other partners with the ministry. Okay. We've heard of the work from Social Transformation. I want to go back to you, Dr. Ogulusi. If you could speak to the Child Development and Guidance Center, the extent of the work that they do for children after there is a diagnosis, or even prior to pending as well, the extent of the work that happens that goes into the children who are either suspected or have been diagnosed with disability. So Child Development and Guidance Center for short CDGC has been doing a lot of work, and we start referring children from them, even from immediately after they are discharged from the hospital, those whom we suspect, okay, from the history, from the features, that this child will most likely suffer a form of developmental delay or may develop disability like the premature babies, babies who have those features already. We refer them. So they start from the beginning to follow them up developmentally. They do a comprehensive developmental assessment, meaning that, you know, we expect a child at every stage to be able to do something at one month, two months, and up to... So they do this comprehensive assessment. And once a disability or a delay is noticed, they start with the therapy. There they have a pediatrician, as we have heard, Dr. Gardner, they have an in-house of physical therapies, a pediatric physiotherapy. They have a psychology who is in home. And they receive a lot of voluntary services from non-other nonprofit organizations. So they have access to speech therapy, occupational therapy, and they even work with the world pediatric project to offer services. They have services of a visiting pediatric neurologist, which is a specialist in the brain area children with problems like seizures and all of that. So they have that. And so they also link with, like I mentioned, world pediatric projects, which it's another organization that helps to do surgery in cases that we can handle in St. Lucia. So they have access to various other specialties and disciplines, but most of the time these ones are on voluntary services. So they come in from time to time to St. Lucia, offer their services and go. Okay, because I say that because something... So you go ahead. Yeah, and before when they started, they were seeing a lot of children up to maybe age 18 years. But now because of the limited resources and services, they have gone down to children between zero and five years. So between zero and five years, almost all forms of disability will refer to CDGC for them to follow and manage. If I may just add, in addition to all of what Dr. Oganlusi has mentioned, CDGC has a very strong link with the special education unit. They do see children in the zero to five age range, but when the children turn five, they're ready for the formal education system. And so there's a handing over that happens between CDGC and the special education unit. There are children that they have been serving who can enter the regular education system, but it is important for the receiving school to have an idea of what the background of that child is. So that happens through the special education unit. In addition to that, there are children that they would be serving who have recognized disabilities who may need to enter directly into the special school system. And again, that happens through the special education unit. And the wonderful thing about CDGC is that these children are presented with a history of the diagnosis that they have, as well as interventions that have been applied to them. CDGC is also able to give us an idea of the trends in terms of compliance that parents have demonstrated and the responses that they have seen in the children that they serve. One thing I want to mention also is that in recent times CDGC has recognized that there are some children who are turning five but not yet developmentally ready for school. And one of the interventions that they have recommended is that these children spend one additional year in the preschool setting. And I think in just about every case where that recommendation has been made and the parents have gone with that suggestion, they have seen some significant developmental improvement in these children in that one year. As opposed to those who enter kindergarten and not ready for it and do not get an opportunity to ground themselves and catch up. And so these are entering with a gap between themselves and their parents in school. So that intervention of delaying kindergarten entry by one year, we have seen some significant benefits from taking that approach. Okay, I brought a subject on the CDGC because we have perhaps many persons who feel that their child was born and seems to look normal. They would not know the background information. And beyond just understanding what the services are is if you can, Dr. Agulusi, speak to or issue an appeal to individuals who are advised by physicians at the hospital to follow through with checkups by the CDGC for the advice and to string out to the other agencies for assistance it needs be. Because the kids are sometimes born normal, sometimes parents, the perception perhaps that I don't want my child to be disabled. I don't even want to entertain the thought. So if you could just issue an appeal in that respect. Yeah, I think I want to make a special appeal to all parents and everybody in the community. Like you have said, rightly said, there are many mothers that are afraid of their child being labeled abnormal because when the child is born, they think everything is okay. But what I want to say is that it's better even if you think your child is okay, it's better to have a group of specialists to monitor the development for you. And if anything is found, the earlier the treatment is instituted, the better. And like Mr. Sages have rightly said, by the time a child goes through CDGC and is assessed and determined whether ready for school or not, it is evident and I have seen mothers that were grateful that they stayed that extra year. And those who disobey CDGC because it's an advice, they cannot force anyone, those who go ahead and put their child in stats grade K, after two, three years, then they will have to come back and then it's like regressing because you have exposed the child to a normal, what this is our normal school. And then they say, oh, the child needs this special needs or special education. It's more difficult when you have started and you go back then, you start from the beginning and you move along. So you see yourself, you are within the group where you are acceptable and then you'll be able to go through. And like he said, many of them, when they start that, eventually we see the progress and eventually they do well, they move along. So I'm appealing to the mothers, it is very important to follow through with CDGC and with any other thing that you have to follow, it is a bad idea or bad character to start a thing and you disappear for one or two years and you wait till when it is now an emergent thing that has to be addressed. The better we tackle it from the beginning and they will be able to follow through. If I may, sorry. This is where the parent support group comes into place. So parents can learn that they're not alone. Some of them are truly afraid and have that fear of their child being labeled, discriminated and bullied, they themselves being bullied, right? So that's why we aim to change the mindsets of our people, of the parents, of society on a wall and they can meet other parents like themselves who are going through the same situation and say, you know what, I am not alone. This person is going through this same situation as well and all of that will help change shift mindsets, build community and make us start thinking, how do we include these children? Because the parents exclude their children because they think we will not accept them, the community will not accept them. So they themselves do a little bit unknowingly pull their child on the side but if we have a community, let's take sports for example, we say, we come up with different activities that includes children with disabilities. They're not sideline, they're included in the activity, we adapt different sporting activities, let's say a really, to include the child in a wheelchair. You know, they feel more accepted, both the child and the parents and you know, we start to change minds and change attitudes and people are now seeing ability, even though that child has a disability, even though that child has cerebral palsy, that child is in a wheelchair, that child can still participate in sports, in the home life, in the community life altogether. So that is where the support group really comes into place here. Okay, in addition to a support group, to what extent do you have counseling services perhaps? Do you? We, sort of, but the way the support group is executed is every, let's say every four weeks, we have one session from a trained professional, physical therapist or counseling or psychology, psychology story. If we realize that there is a participant or parent that is in need of further support that is counseling, we would make the link, that's where the linkage comes into place, we would make that link with the parent and the counselor or is it education or health, that kind of thing. Okay, at this point, we do for a break for this midday update. And just to let you know, if you're just joining us, we're having a disability forum live on NTN, engaging Mr. Dilsages from the Department of Education, the special education officer, Dr. Olu Ogunlusi from the Ministry of Health and Wellness. She's a community pediatrician. We also have Ms. Tanzia Tuse from the Department of Social Transformation and Ms. Zanik Edwards from the ALRM, Advocates Linking Resilience Movement, facilitator. We do invite your questions, your queries, comments and commendations on the part of all of these individuals who are representing agencies. You can put in your queries in the Facebook page and also you can call at 468-2162. We go to break now. On the other end, we continue with the forum. Overnight, growing national unrest. A passionate society of digital, cashless society. One world power. A vaccine for COVID-19. Throughout the COVID-19 virus, facing iconic flagships, the coronavirus vaccine is set over. If I were in a position to the lockdown, and infected with conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, I'd be glad to see that. The truth about the origin of COVID-19 is a cool ridden from the rest of the world and the Chinese. In this constantly changing environment, resulting in sensory overload, cut through the noise and tune in to the national television network. The official news of COVID-19 and the national television network. The official source of information. All facts. Thank you so much for staying tuned to the Disability Forum live on NTN. We are discussing the services available to persons affected by disability here in St. Lucia. I want to now head on to Mr. Dale St. Gist from the Department of Education, Special Education Officer. If you could just speak to us about the special education institutions, the schools here on Ireland, how are they faring so far, more specifically in the COVID-19 context? Okay, well, whenever there's a national situation, a crisis, I think maybe persons with disabilities or persons with special needs are probably more severely affected because even during regular conditions, they are challenges that they encounter. And these challenges that affect everyone seem to affect them even to a greater extent. It has been difficult for our students with special needs during the learning from home environment that all of St. Lucia has been plunged into. In many schools, students have been able to get on various online platforms and they could navigate the internet world to access resources, learning resources, so that their education could continue. Many of our students are not able to do that. Those who have intellectual challenges, those who have various delays and needs that make it difficult for them to on their own navigate the online environment. And in many cases, some parents lack the capacity to be able to give the kinds of support that their children need. In fact, I have spoken to teacher colleagues of mine who have told me that they had difficulty assisting their own children. I'm not talking about a situation with special needs. So even more challenging for the parents of children with special needs. In fact, some of our students need support not just with academic inputs. They are those who at special schools are getting therapeutic interventions and the equipment is not available at home that is available at school and the expertise is not very available with the parents. So that has been quite a challenge in addition to that, there are many children whose diagnosis makes change a little bit difficult for them, particularly those on the autism spectrum who need routine and who need regularity in terms of their experience. We were suddenly made to stay at home and learn from home. So that adjustment has been difficult for some of our students. But I need to sing the praises of our teachers because the teachers within the special schools have gone significantly above and beyond the call of duty to reach their students. They have formed WhatsApp groups with their parents and give input through that means some of them have used Zoom platforms but in many cases they have prepared physical packages and sent these home to the students. So work sheets and activity sheets that they're able to do and then the teachers check back with them. Many of the students have really enjoyed these type of activities. They have enjoyed seeing their teachers on the screen and a couple of them have said that they would prefer to continue this way than to be back in school physically. So it has been a mixed bag but for the most part the COVID crisis has been really challenging for our students especially. Okay and Dr. Ogilusi if you could speak to as a community pediatrician how your work has perhaps been hampered how have you been able to work around COVID-19 and CDGC as well? Okay. So what we do in the community, the community child health service our normal usual program is our wrong clinic, pediatric clinic and all of the districts. I have scheduled days to visit each district and to run the pediatric clinic. And so when COVID started you know everything came to a halt. But the good thing is we made personal contact with some of the families and those who really need the service during those times when they called either directly to me or to the health centers and we make an arrangement to see them. So there was a breakage in service for the month of April but by May we have resumed the clinic all the clinic has resumed except Denry because of the challenges they are using the center for respiratory clinic. We initially moved to reach for a health center and they too are doing a renovation. So there was a stoppage for one or two months but I'm telling the people in Denry region I'm going to resume my clinic in Denry in August but it's going to be in afternoon the nurses will be contacting them because they are the ones that really have not seen much during this break. The other side that has been affected is a grossly poly clinic because I run clinic there but immediately at the beginning when we resumed the clinic in Grossly was moved to Grand Reveil Wellness Center. So I'm also using this opportunity to tell all my patients which have not been able to reach out to and they don't know how to reach me they can get me at Grand Reveil Wellness Center and it's the usual time, the second and the fourth Thursday of the month. All the other clinics have resumed and we are working but maybe some are not aware but the ones that the nurses can reach out to we have done that, we have done that. And about CDGC2, CDGC2 was affected but they have kicked off also and they are doing what they call tele therapy. You know, those mothers who have access to a phone or tablet they're calling them and observing the children directing through but you know there are some that they can really not reach out to but I want them to know that CDGC also is back on track and they should communicate with them and make appointments to see that. Okay, and Ms. Tussier, certainly you would have had a system in place by now for the disbursement of funds but can you also speak to in the same COVID-19 context with the individuals coming to you perhaps? We're now in the book list season and you know persons probably want assistance for their kids perhaps going back to school and what have you. How so far has your office been managing that? Well, the office has been managing it through the social development. The SSDF has its own mandate for the education program and they're the ones actually doing it. So the assessments in terms of the eligibility who qualifies for it, all of that is ongoing and it is a tool that is used by the ministry and the ministry is now in the process of actually re-ramping that tool, we're almost at the end in terms of the version 3.0, SLNet, the eligibility tool but this is what SSDF is utilizing to do the education component aspect in terms of school supplies. In terms of COVID-19, one of the ministry's first response has always been to help those who are affected and I quite agree with Mr. Sanjis when he says, I agree with him in saying that sometimes these are, that's the groups that are mostly impacted in any kind of disasters and these are the groups that we mostly don't hear anything about and for that reason we have included them in everything. So we have included them in the care packages, the ministry was helping out with the care packages at the beginning, we've included them in hygiene packages making sure that they get, especially for those mothers who don't have access to their jobs, they lost their jobs in terms of COVID-19 and they have those kids making sure that they have food supplies, giving them those kind of hamper packages and as long as we are able to get access to those kinds of services, we make sure that our persons with disabilities are first on the list to get that kind of service to them. Most times it is done through the assistance of the respective social transformation officers or the welfare officers on the ground or the social worker on the ground, they would dispatch those services to those affected, they know where they live, so it's not a matter of them coming, it's the whole issue of the overhead costs and all of those associated costs in terms of getting the items, we prefer those kinds of things and of course practicing social distancing that was factored in as well, but it is important at the ministry for us to always remember that we need to care for them because who else is looking, we need to make sure that they're well taken care of. Okay, Ms. Tuse, a question for you coming from the Facebook live comments. Again, just reminding you, you can comment your questions, queries, commendations, et cetera on the Facebook page or our YouTube channel with any questions. You can also call the number 4682162 to make your contribution to today's midday update with this disability forum. A question for you, Ms. Tuse. Good afternoon to panel and audience. My question is, does the child have to be a student of a special needs school to get the opportunities of the ministry? No, no school. We go through the process. Anybody can call it for any child. I remember saying at the beginning, it's a universal grant. It's only if you meet the criteria. Once the doctors do the assessment, the assessment comes with a tallied form, which means the questions or whatever assessment that is done by the respective doctors carries weights and then there will be a score that would determine that this child is in need of assistance. So that is what we use. We cannot tamper with this. It is strictly the doctors who decide that I have seen this child. This child has been assessed. This is what is presented. This is the diagnosis. And because of this score, the child qualifies. We add them onto the list and inform the parent that they need to come to the ministry for their contracts and their letter. And then they would give us the actual information, banking information. Where is your bank? Give us your bank account number, banking information, your contact number. One of the things we always insist and we've seen it because there are a number of initiatives right now and it's COVID-19 response where families tend to benefit, especially those on our programs like the public assistance program or whatever. We always need to reinforce and to say to the general public that whenever a situation or something changes in your details, you need to let us know. One of the challenges that we're having is sometimes those families who really need the help, they may change their numbers. Their telephone numbers change very easily and they don't inform the ministry and we have to be going door to door or house to house asking, do you know this person or they change their addresses. Their bank remains the same. Yes, the money can go to your bank but there may be reason for us to need you to give you access to something else that is not financial. It may be just to drop off a hamper or whatever but people need to recognize that this information is very critical to us. Once it changes, you need to let us know so that we could update our databases to reflect those changes. I understood. Another question coming through that last question was from Hiro. I hope that response suffices. The other question from Kemba, Frederick Lewis, are school-based OT, PT, and speech therapy services offered in St. Lucia? That is one of the wish lists that we have. Unfortunately, it has not migrated out of the realm of wishes as yet. We simply do not have currently the resources to secure the services of professionals in these areas. Does the need exist significantly? Yes, and I was saying to someone that if you place a speech and language therapist at one of our special schools, that person will be overworked at just one of our special schools. And that would apply for all of our special schools and that is not even yet making reference to students within the mainstream setting who will need speech and language support. So there is a significant need for these type of support services within the education sector. Generally, professionals providing therapy is in short supply in St. Lucia. And then the economic resources to secure the services of these people, that seems to be in even shorter supply. So the need exists. Is it that there are professionals who are not providing the therapy or there's a shortage of professionals? In some of these areas, some of these categories, we do not have qualified persons available. And in those areas where we do have people available, they are otherwise occupied and are not available to the education system. Another question coming from Lisa Joseph. How do I qualify for the packages given because I have never heard from anyone in reference to my daughter? So I think that touches on what you just spoke of earlier. Could be any number of reasons from your department. Yes, any number of reasons because once either way, if you do not qualify and if you qualify, if you do not qualify, there's a letter waiting for you. If you qualify, there's also a letter waiting for you with your contract. And what you do once we get the packages, we collect the packages on a weekly basis, by the way. So there's a courier service that goes around the island. And then if Dr. August Musso leaves it at this health center, the nurse will give it to us at this health center because we have the vehicle going all around the island and collecting. They see that there's the same thing with the child guidance center. They may just call us and say, we need you to come and collect. We have some packages for you and whatever. So if it is that you didn't hear, that means you need to call the ministry to find out what's going on. Because there may be, it may mean that they tried reaching you and either you change your number or the number that was given is not the correct number or something went wrong. But in either case, you will receive a response. Okay, I just want to bring back the focus here. Greater context. Looking at the services that are today available, financial support services from the ministry, from in the health sector and the education sector. Any one of you, if you could just give me, give us a broad understanding of where we've come from and where we're at right now in terms of services that were perhaps not available before and now available and how it has changed the landscape and understanding and appreciation of people who live with disability and who support someone with a disability and so on. Well, if I may start, this is one of the things that I say to my staff often and my staff gets very frustrated that things are not moving on as quickly as they would like it to. And I periodically say, take a look back and realize that we are not where we used to be, although we're not yet where we want to be. Within education, it used to be that someone would look at a child and say you belong in such and such a special school. And this person could be mistaken, this person could be having a bad day, this person could simply be lacking information about the background of the child and so may make that decision without sufficient evidence. Today, our placement of children within special education setting is evidence-based and so we do detailed assessments of students using standardized instruments so it is not a matter of anyone's opinion. It is based on what the child demonstrates, what evidence exists, what the background of the child is and all of that is brought together. The other significant advancement I think that we have is the level of consultation and collaboration that happens between agencies. So Dr. Oganlusi works very closely with the special education unit. The special education unit works with SSDF and there's a close connection between health professionals and professionals in education. So I think now we have more of a kind of a wraparound support service available to persons with disabilities, especially children with disabilities. It used to be that people in a neighborhood would know that there's a person in a certain house but nobody ever sees that person because that person is a person with disability and is literally shut in. I would love to say that that absolutely does not happen anymore. I don't know if I can say it that way but I think that is significantly less. There is a greater awareness of support services that are available and more parents are now presenting their children for support, for education, for health services and as a result of that they're coming out of the woodwork, they're being made available to the various agencies that can support and you start to see children out in the open, they're on the beach and they're in the supermarket and they're in the churches. With the same disabilities that others had before but now getting greater acceptance into the various components and elements of society. And feel more empowered. You did mention the spectrum of autism and we know that in some cases these individuals are sometimes borderline genius so it has changed the perception. Disability is the new sexy idea, say. In fact, let me just take this in. One of the things that we are excited about is the fact that the children with special needs are now qualifying for accommodations at national exams so that whatever difficulties that are associated with the diagnosed condition, they are getting some kind of an adjustment that will help them over that so that we can get to their true ability. So if a child has dyslexia, for example, and has difficulty decoding the text that is in front of him or her. If you put an exam script in front of this child and you say, do this exam, you'll never truly get to what this child is capable of but if you have someone sitting next to the child reading the questions out, now the child knows what the question is and can give an answer. And because this child has dyslexia, he or she may not be able to write out an answer but surely can speak out the answer because the information is in the head. And so a scribe is available to write out this answer and submit that as the child's work. So that is a major improvement, achievement, I think that we have in education among other things. So we're getting there. We're not there yet but we are definitely getting to the place of equitable services. To add one more point to what Mr. Sages have said in the medical area, one improvement I think we can boost off is that we have the support of the World Pediatric Project and this is an organization that have helped tremendously in the lives of children of St. Lucia to do surgeries which we are unable to do and this includes various aspects from heart surgery to orthopedic surgery, surgery in the spine. And without some of these surgeries, this child, I mean, life will have been more difficult to cope with their disabilities. And since the World Pediatric Project has been helping, it has, there has been a tremendous improvement in the lives of our children with disability. I think I should stress that and not also to mention the scope of CDGC2 that have in, you know, widened because of the support they get both internally and externally, all those visiting specialists that comes in and out. So we have moved from where Mr. Sages have said, a hidden person, nobody knows you but you have disability. Now you can come open and you can get some help. Okay, Mr. Sages? For me, I think one of the things I always say is that baby steps do matter. The little steps, the little things that you do to influence or to touch the life of somebody with disability. From a child who probably was just at home not knowing how to do certain things and by just getting a little assistance to get to go to a special school or to have a special bus to take me there to be able to put me from a wheelchair onto a bus that will take me to school and bring me back. These are the things that matters because these are the changes that you'll see and parents can vouch for those kinds of things. But I really want to speak out for the institutions. The institutions that continue to support the ministry in terms of the work that we do and these are some of the steps that we have noticed. We have noticed the interest of the Caribbean Development Bank, for example, in wanting to fund the consultancy to do the registry, the National Adult Registry for persons living with disabilities. We know the continuous support of UNSF in terms of fighting for children's needs and looking now especially at children with disabilities. The World Food Program, the RFP and all those institutions when you look at food security and how it is that it could help persons with disabilities. We look at all of those strides that we have made with the institutions and how they continue to support the work that we do in San Jose. It was not there in the past. It is increasing. The awareness is increasing. And so we have come, the baby steps do matter. Absolutely. And as we're rounding up, the countdown is on for the end of today's midday update. I just want to pass on to you, Ms. Edwards. If you could just speak to the movement, the advocates linking resilience and movement group. At this time, I know that there are some medium and long-term goals of this institution, this organization. If you could just speak to that before we wrap up. Yes, sure. So moving forward, I will tell everybody, you will be seeing different PSAs, different videos from us where our students are concerned. Because some of us are educators in the special field. So we will be trying to show the public the students' ability over their disability. We will continue looking at parents as individuals, rather than as parents of a child with special needs. But we're looking at them as an individual because I think they're forgetting themselves. And they have to remember you are a person too. Separate from you being a mom or a dad or a child with a special need. And the entire situation, you are an individual first. You are a young lady first. And they're forgetting that. They're truly forgetting that. So we will continue to work with parents. Our support group will be continuing. Our new cohort will start in September. There are other support groups, existing support groups as well. I believe Lady Gordon has one. I think they will be starting in September as well. Everyone just have to wait to hear how we're going to rule it out, considering protocol rules because of COVID. CDGC as well will be starting one of their own. So we're looking forward to truly working with the parents and providing support in whatever way we can. More than financial support. They don't just need financial support. They need emotional support. They need somebody there who can listen to what it is they're truly going through and so on. Okay, so a parent who perhaps or a guardian who wants some more information on the ALRM group, if you could just give them some contact information where they can find out some more information about the organization. Yes, so you can reach us on our email at ALRM.758.1 at gmail.com. I'll repeat it, ALRM.758.1 at gmail.com or myself as a facilitator via Facebook or Mr. Rodney Maxius, if you see him. I'm sure most people know him. He's a facilitator. You can reach out to him as well. Okay, thank you very much for that. And before we close, I just want to get an update from the Department of Education, the representative here from Special Education Officer, Mr. Sejist. We did hear from the budget address, the budget debates that there will be special attention on the infrastructure of special needs institutions. So just give us an update on that work that's ongoing. Well, there's a very exciting project that is on is the Education Quality Improvement Project. And one of the deliverables under that project is that the technical works for the construction of a new school for students with special needs will be undertaken. But something even more exciting has happened because we have expanded that from one to two schools. And we are targeting a new facility for what is now done at a school. And we are also looking at the Special Education Center in Viewfort. So the plan is to have two new special educational needs facilities, state of the art with all of the bells and whistles. And we are very excited about the prospects of that. Wonderful. Hopefully we could get updates from the Ministry of Education on where that is headed. And through the newly formed organization, ALRM, we will be getting additional support on these new developments. Again, thank you very much for your time today. This has been another NTN midday update. We've had in studio Ms. Zanik Edwards, the ALRM Advocates Linking Resilience Movement facilitator, Ms. Tanzia Tusa, Department of Social Transformation, Dr. Olu Ogunlosi from the Ministry of Health and Wellness. She's a community pediatrician and Mr. Dale Sejist from the Department of Education, a special education officer. It's all the time we have for now, but again, we do hope if you were listening, you were able to jot down the contact information for the ALRM movement and the group that has formed so far for parents and guardians who are looking for support at this time for their kids living with disabilities. So I'm sure we're gonna have you guys back to give us an update, a status update, hopefully. Again, thank you so much for watching. Do stay tuned for more NTN updates. My name is Jesse Leon, signing off for now. Goodbye. Do you have a question for a government minister or ministry? Here's your chance to ask anything. Send in your questions as videos or texts to askmeanythingntn at gmail.com and we will have your questions answered live on NTN channel 122. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube for more updates and your chance to ask anything.