OT- Nancy in Hangzhou, China

Well Gang, I'm very happy to report that Nancy Lawton-Shirley is stationed for the next 2 weeks at Hangzhou Orphanage giving therapy guidance and instruction. I've posted a sweet photo from last October to remind you who Nancy is. She is the smiling face in the center with bare legs. I haven't received a photo I can use yet from this March trip but believe me...no bare feet! It's cold!!! Except for today, I guess it warmed up and everyone is feeling very glad that it did. Fickle March!
Well anyway, Nancy has been hard at it, working with the kids and the staff and each day we get an email report from that day's work. I'll paraphrase a few of the high points:
Monday: Observed the Conductive Ed class for the 5-7 year old children with CP. She was able to make suggestions on how to help the children better focus on the activities. Later the man in charge of massage therapy suggested that he could encorporate 'brushing' into his routine. A great idea since the nannies have to multitask at all times. A child was fit with a dynamic splint which really helped. Nancy observed the baby room and noted that the nannies have successfully incorporated oral motor into their routine. Nancy was able to make more suggestions and an application of kinesiotape on one baby's neck muscles helped that child acheive better head control.
Tuesday: This was a super interesting day for Nancy and our interpreter Vivian because they got to visit 10 foster care families at their homes! Here is a quote: "I was so honored that they trusted me enough to bring me to a wide range of homes from country rustic to more city based. The foster moms were just delightful ranging in age from fairly young to older. The visits were short and there was limited evaluation time- sometimes I was lucky to find a child in all those clothes! Each family had one foster child and 2 families had two."
Wednesday: A very rewarding day! The focus was on training the rehab staff to do the child evaluations. Nancy spoke to the therapists about the clinical reasoning while she was doing the evaluations. She selected developmental techniques to go with each evaluation. The staff had excellent observations and questions. When it was their turn to do the evaluations, they were accurate and successful!
Word has it that the directors or the orphanage are very pleased! Great work Nancy! I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's report.