INGO «Child with future” together with Davines Ukraine initiates the project “Helping autistic children to get an education in a regular school.” The project will raise funds to equip a sensory room for special children in a special boarding school №26 in Kiev.
The sensory room is one of the conditions for a comfortable stay of a child with autism or other mental disabilities at school. “Since the 2017 school year, children with disabilities have the opportunity to study in a regular school near their home, becoming part of an inclusive class. In most cases, such a possibility is theoretical, but we want it to become a reality. To do this, we and our partners act in different ways, one of which is equipping a sensory room that will help children learn comfortably in a secondary school,”notes Inna Sergiyenko, INGO «Child with future” founder.
The sensory room is a magical room for stress relief and relaxation. It helps the child to find personal harmony and harmony with the outside world, restore mental balance, and strengthen the nervous system.
This room houses special equipment that allows the psychologist to work gently with special children, to carry out prevention and even treatment of the nervous system and sense organs. This room will allow the child to recover from school overload and calmly return to the classroom for learning. At the same time, without disturbing the rest of the children. Thus, the characteristics of the child will not interfere with either him or his schoolmates.
Purposes of the sensory room:
- Sensory stimulation: children use and explore objects, learn to respond and interact with the world around. Sensory stimulation activates different parts of the brain, which helps children better remember new information.
- Improving balance, coordination and orientation in space: help in the development of cognitive abilities, as well as small and large motor skills
- Solving problem behavior: normalizing behavior through comfort and coziness for hyperactive, irritated or upset children; “Activating” inactive children, helping them to “wake up”; improved concentration and decreased desire to indulge.
In order to expand access to the sensory room for more special children, the project includes weekend activities for children in the neighborhood where the school is located. Every weekend a psychologist will work with special children in the sensory room. The sensory room effect is not clear or familiar to most parents. Thus, in addition to classes with children, the sensory room will teach parents how to calm their child in times of stress, how to direct his attention in the right direction, etc.
SENSORY ROOM REQUIREMENTS
Technical requirements:
- Control over lighting and backlighting
- Elements of comfort
- Ability to relax or pour out energy (fitness ball, sofa)
Equipment for:
- Vestibular stimulation
- Proprioceptive stimulation
- Audio stimulation
- Visual stimulation
- Tactile stimulation
- Large and fine motor skills
Environment requirements:
- Comfortable carpet
- Comfortable frameless sofa or armchair
- Cabinet for storing materials and equipment
- Ability to play music
- Blinds on windows to control lighting
- Dimming bulbs
- Colored bulbs
- Fitness ball
- Magnetic whiteboard
- Fan for “white noise” and wind
Sensory set of equipment:
- Interactive panels (light, business board …)
- Set for “grounding” (perfume, sharp mint gum, hand warmers, weighted blanket)
- Tactile set (various cereals in containers, various scraps of fabric, etc.)
- Bubble Tube or equivalent. Mirrors enhance the effect
- Lava lamps, or fiber optic
- Vibration cushion or massager
- Music for meditation and relaxation
- Audiobooks (poetry, short stories)
- Aroma (salts or oils)
Calming and stimulating sets:
- Mirror
- Personal care basket (comb, hand cream, nail file – each child brings as needed)
- A basket of tasks (coloring mandalas, 3D puzzles, crosswords, Sudoku)
- Motor basket (fidgets, anti-stress balls, hand and foot massagers, etc.)
- A set of multi-colored films of a small size
- Rain staff (rainstick or equivalent)
Intensive sensing equipment
- Weighted blankets, vests, knee pads
- Weighted toys
- Balancer (ball or swing)
- Yoga mat
- Expander resistance band
- Weighted pouches
- Weighted ball
- Body sock
The project budget is UAH 100,000.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROJECT
Anyone who wants to support the project can contribute and purchase Davines conceptual magnets in the form of animals, worth from UAH 50. (the amount of the charitable contribution is not limited). Magnets can be purchased at beauty salons and hairdressing salons in Kiev.
All collected funds are credited to the account of the INGO «Child with future”, the report on which will be published on the project page, it is planned to be implemented in 2019.