Community Care Alliance shares expertise with education professionals from Jamaica
WOONSOCKET — Community Care Alliance’s (CCA) Early Intervention (EI) program has had an ongoing relationship with the not-for profit Therapy Missions, Inc. since 2007, when 12 occupational and physical therapists from Rhode Island, with two from the northern Rhode Island EI program, traveled to Juarez, Mexico, to do a two-week mission at a clinic for children and adults with disabilities.
During the last 10 years, Therapy Missions, a secular non-profit organization, has traveled to seven countries and trained hundreds of para-professionals and caregivers in settings that include rural and community clinics, schools, orphanages, nursing homes and individual patient homes.
Antonica Gunter-Gayle, the director of the Early Stimulation Program in Jamaica, along with two administrators of the home and school programs, visited Rhode Island for the week of Sept. 18 to 22. They were able to spend two days with the Early Intervention Program (EI) at Community Care Alliance, observing evaluations, home visits and groups, and meeting with the staff to discuss all aspects of the program and various evaluation tools. They will be able to go back to Jamaica with many new concepts, ideas and strategies that they can share with their staff and families.
Therapy Missions sends teams of professional therapists to identify and train those who care for people with disabilities, having a lasting effect on the quality of life for people with disabilities in under-served areas of the world. The partnership with the Early Stimulation Program in Jamaica since 2014 has provided teaching and training sessions for their staff.
Therapy Missions is grateful to Linda Majewski, program manager, and her team, for their willingness to share their knowledge and skills with partners from Jamaica, and CCA is grateful for the opportunity to learn from visi-