Home-based care for special needs children

The Covid-19 pandemic has played havoc on the entire world and unknown to many people, persons with special needs seem to have been at greater risk with learning opportunities than the rest of the population.

Your question brings children with special needs back to the spotlight as yet another group that we must think about even as we plan for the future in, which this virus will continue to change the way we do business and relate to one another.

At the best of times, educating children with special needs can be a challenge, and parents and teachers alike all over world have to find ways of overcoming the challenges posed. Covid-19 has, therefore, made a difficult challenge more serious.

One of the major challenges particularly in rural areas is finding the right teacher for the child in need of special education. For many years, children with special needs have been hidden away and treated as objects of shame, a fact that has itself led to serious challenges. In some communities over the years, not only were these children taken as a curse to the family, there are communities in parts of the world in which the children are killed.

That, however, is one side of the coin because most parents who have special children often go overboard in looking after their special children for variable reasons. An example will illustrate this point. While I was a young student in the UK in the 70s, a friend introduced me to a family I later came to know well. They had a son who had intellectual disability and at the time, there was no suitable school for him. They were able to pay for his education anywhere in the world but they wanted him at home with them.

They came to London, and with my help and that of others, we recruited (at great expense) a young teacher who came to Nairobi to start a school named after the young boy.

It was an incredible project in which parents with similar children came together with both material and human resources in the care of their children. Although I had worked with children with special needs as a student, I was struck by the love and care given by the parents over the years I was able to serve with the parents. They spared nothing material or emotional to show their love and affection to those in greatest need. More recently, I continue to be amazed by a large number of parents who with minimal societal support are able to manage their children, who by the way also become adults with special needs.

Another angle not often addressed is the fact that such children also have many different medical needs that are both expensive to treat but which can also be emotionally draining to the families and the teachers.

One obvious example is a child with intellectual disability who also has epilepsy, two conditions that individually carry great stigma but are also often extremely draining to care givers be they parents or teachers.

Given all the foregoing, one then has the additional challenge posed by Covid-19 pandemic which only multiplies the many challenges all parents have, starting with their own emotional and financial problems that we are all so familiar with.

Even before one talks about the possibility of using distance learning for children with special needs, there is the more immediate challenge of getting them to appreciate the fact that masks are to be worn. The problems of sanitisers also cause special problems to this very important group.

All the foregoing has not addressed your question and in particular how to help the special needs teachers during this difficult time. All I can say is that most teachers who train children with special needs seem to take that profession because for them it is a calling and they do wonderful things against all odds.

I would suggest that as we did 40 years ago when my friend had a child with special needs is we should bring together parents and teachers of this group of children and seek their wise counsel on how to proceed. It will surprise you how teachers and parents can solve challenges given the right environment.

Good luck to you all.