Project Spotlight

Welcome to Givewell's Project Spotlight. Each month we highlight a project for which a charity is currently seeking funds. We also provide details on how to give directly for this project.

Organisation	The Royal Far West Children's Health Scheme
Project Name	The Hanen Parent Training Program - 'It Takes Two to Talk'

Project description
At Royal Far West our mission is 'to provide a comprehensive quality health care service for children from rural New South Wales'. In the speech department our philosophy is to provide 'professional services for the remediation of communication difficulties. No child should be deprived of speech pathology services because they are not available locally. As a result of the socioeconomic status and geographical isolation of many of our clients, many children under the age of four are in the 'at-risk' category or already presenting with communication difficulties. It is essential to provide an early intervention service for these clients and their families as, by identifying and working with them at an early age we can prevent later speech and language difficulties that they are at risk of developing. Research indicates that 'nearly two thirds of children identified before age two as late or slow talkers continue to show delays in expressive language problems at age three. For more than half of these children who continue to have language problems at age four, the risk of developing learning disabilities is very high' (National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Advisory Board, 1991) and 'the child's failure to develop language normally has an enormous impact on the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions, often resulting in a mismatch between parental input and the child's specific linguistic requirements' (Cross, 1984). It is essential that early language intervention programs involve the child's primary caregivers. This is particularly relevant with geographically isolated families who are unable to access regular services locally. By supplying this intensive family-focused early language intervention, families are no longer dependent upon the speech pathologist and they become empowered to help their own child. By running this program in a group context it also provides a support network for families.

Procedure
The first Hanen program will be facilitated by two speech pathologists, one of whom became Hanen certified in July, 1998. Preparation for this will include:

Purchase of necessary equipment, training materials and supplies (see attached list).
Selection of clients eligible for the program (each group consisting of up to eight families).
Organization of client registrations and accommodation needs at the Royal Far West Manly site.
Room bookings made for each day for the parent training session as well as an extra play group time to be supervised by two speech pathologists where parents can practice their newly acquired skills with their own children.

Evaluation
The Hanen program will be evaluated according to the following:

Parents' pre-program and post-program videotapes will be compared and analyzed to determine changes in parents' interactive behavior.
Changes in the child's social, communication and language skills will be recorded over the course of the program.
Parents will be asked to fill out a pre and post program questionnaire to gain information including their impression of their child, their needs and how the program is impacting on these.
The speech pathologists will draft a report for each family summarizing progress and recommendations.

Can donors/grantmakers give directly for this project? Yes.

If so, how?
Through The Royal Far West Children's Health Scheme by specifying where they would like their contributions to be spent.

Is there an allowance for administration costs? Royal Far West will pay all administrative costs.

For detailed information about their services, please see the website: www.royalfarwest.org.au

This month's nomination is by Givewell's Alex Dance.

Alex says that he chose this project because he was concerned about children who may be developing learning disabilities. This project appealed to him because it tackles the problem from an early age, where intervention can make the greatest impact. He was especially impressed with the resources used, the depth of the evaluation, and the progress of the child that the program fosters.