What’s New

South Australia has recently appointed the first Assistant Minister for Autism, and they have been given the task of improving autism support in public schools. This follows new research from the University of South Australia that has highlighted the worldwide concern from parents on the lack of awareness and understanding of the learning needs of autistic children across all levels of mainstream school. Lead researcher Dr Kobie Boshoff from the University of South Australia, told The Educator Online that support for autistic children is urgently needed in schools and occupational therapists would be perfectly placed to help change this. ““By acting as a bridge between the parent and the school they [OTs] can support parent advocacy, while facilitating school and staff understanding of the unique learning needs of each child with ASD. “They work holistically within a child’s environment, so whether it’s working one-on-one with children, in groups or with teachers, they can design alternative ways to help children meet their learning goals.” Recognising the power of occupational therapy, Dr Boshoff urged the new Assistant Minister for Autism to consider placing occupational therapists in schools as it would also improve parent-school relationships, which can only have a positive effect on the learning outcomes for a child.

Paralympian Ali Jawad has recently launched an app designed and curated specifically for and by disabled people. Recognising the lack of accessibility to gyms and other sporting opportunities, Ali decided to create Accessercise. This is an easily downloadable app that is designed to allow disabled people to exercise on their own terms from the comfort of their own home. The app has three key features: 1 A unique impairment specific video exercise library tailored to the user’s impairment. Video exercises are performed by exercise demonstrators of the user’s disability, allowing users to create their own training programmes that best suits them

A Social Hub where users get to share, like, comment and follow user’s fitness journeys to create a real sense of community

A unique accessibility rating scale where users get to rate the accessibility of gyms and local sports facilities in their local areas To find out more and to download Accessercise visit join.accessercise. com.

2 3

GripAble and Imperial College London have been awarded a grant worth over £800,000 from Biomedical Catalyst to allow them to continue to develop SqueezAble – a product that will revolutionise upper limb therapy for paediatric cerebral palsy patients. In the UK, there are an estimated 187,000 children living with an arm disability, and 85 million worldwide. Gripable and Dr Firat Güder from the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London recognise that without regular occupational therapy for upper limb and hand strength, dexterity and movement range, a child’s condition is likely to deteriorate and impact their ability to live more independently in adulthood. The project team will work with children with paediatric cerebral palsy to develop SqueezAble, as well as Imperial’s Güder Research Group, and an award-winning team of OTs, clinical specialists, and medical device engineers. Dr Mike Mace, chief technology officer and co-founder of GripAble, said: “Children living with an arm disability must learn to independently complete bimanual activities of daily living, requiring them to use both hands simultaneously, to be able to complete everyday tasks like eating, writing, and washing. To support them with this, we have a vision of a next-gen sensor which seamlessly integrates with and complements current occupational therapy by incorporating novel soft-sensing technology that will enable training of bimanual hand function by digitising existing soft therapy tools such as stress balls and Theraputty, in combination with gamification and virtual tasks. “The project will incorporate usercentred design processes to develop and test SqueezAble with our target user group. As well as developing the new SqueezAble technology, over the next two years, we plan to create new bimanual games for training functional movement on GripAble’s software platform extending our current unimanual games.”

Disability Action Yorkshire has partnered with Highstone Housing Association to create a £7.5m housing scheme in Harrogate, replacing an existing 20-bed facility and offering 36 disabled people energy-efficient homes. The development will include a base for Disability Action Yorkshire staff, who will be available to assist residents at any time. The first phase of building will see 24 one- and twobedroom flats erected where the current complex stands, and on a plot of land bought from Harrogate Borough Council. Local MP Andrew Jones and the Mayor of the Borough of Harrogate will break ground on the construction that’s taking place in Claro Road.

Jackie Snape, Disability Action Yorkshire’s chief executive, said: “This will be a very significant occasion for the charity, on what will possibly be one of the most significant days in our 85-year history. “I’m delighted that Andrew Jones and Councillor Oldham will be performing the ‘breaking ground’ ceremony. “They will be joined by a number of Claro Road residents, who are eager to move into their own homes. “We have designed the development sympathetically to the local surroundings, while also holding a strong character and sense of place for residents. “The new homes are energy-efficient and are designed to provide tenants with homes for life to suit their wide ranging needs.”

NRS Healthcare has been recognised as part of HRH The Princess Royal’s training awards for excellence in health, safety and environment training - one of only eight companies within the healthcare industry to receive the award. City & Guilds selected NRS Healthcare, recognising their Health, Safety and Environment training, which is Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents accredited. It was one of 47 training programmes from across the UK to be recognised with the award. David Straughan, chief operative officer at NRS Healthcare, said: “Our employees work nationally and often remotely and in many different job roles. This new way of working has taken a few years of continual improvements but has been worth all the hard work, making our training packages easy to access, improved our overall employee engagement, their career opportunities and in turn has improved our service offering to our service users.” Kirstie Donnelly MBE, chief executive of City & Guilds, said: “According to our Great Jobs research report published earlier this year, we know that 15,000 job openings are expected in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry in the next five years. The Princess Royal Training Awards demonstrate how training and development can open up opportunities and attract new talent to industries with significant skills gaps, labour shortages and high demand for workers. Yet again, this year’s recipients have shown the range and depth of learning and development that is taking place in their own organisations to shape growth and positivity from the power of skills development to address these issues. We would like to congratulate this year’s recipients and look forward to celebrating with them later this year.”

We are proud to be partnering with the ERIC Paediatric Continence Care Conference. Taking place on 10 October at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole with an online option also available, this year’s conference theme is: “Equality and Inclusion: Making sure no child is left out or left behind”. With a focus on working with children with additional needs, the programme includes a comprehensive line-up of speakers and workshops including a talk delivered by occupational therapist and interoception expert Kelly Mahler, and a workshop entitled “Toilet training for children with complex ASD and/or intellectual disability” delivered by Annemarie Sims, clinical specialist OT based at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. For more information and to book your place, visit: ERIC.org.uk/