In addition to directly serving children and their families, another large part of our mission has always been to promote and further rehabilitation and therapy in China. There are a many ways we are working towards this. Since the merger of LIH and Olivia’s Place our efforts toward this goal have become more intentional and faster paced. Lis Ringrose, a long standing member of the Olivia’s Place clinical team, was appointed Chief Therapy Officer across the company. She is tasked with ensuring clinical quality across the company and also to coordinate the work needed to underpin the expansion of services. Through development of LIH Olivia’s Place’s services, we can build clinics that demonstrate how best practice rehabilitation can be achieved in China.
Another element of this work is to develop training and teaching programs to up skill locally qualified staff. (Rehabilitation professional qualifications – OT, PT, SLT – in China are only just starting to be taught to a depth standard that is internationally accepted.) Due to culture differences and the fact that these programs are designed to be used with already qualified clinicians, a different approach to that of a western undergraduate program is needed. Lis has put together a team of experienced clinicians from across each profession to develop a structure and write the content for this program. The plan is that these programs can then be used in hospitals across the country which want to up skill their staff.
This month we also welcome Dr. Susan Cadzow. In the position of Director of Developmental Behavioral Pediatric Services, Susan’s role will be to develop a parallel fellowship training program for doctors who want to specialize in developmental pediatrics.
These training programs, while focusing on the individual skills that each profession brings, also emphasize a family centered team approach. All professionals have the opportunity to be supervised by an experienced clinician of their own profession while in an environment where they can learn about and from the other professions.
To support this training structure, a teaching program is being developed for participants to learn about common pediatric presentations and treatment approaches in multi-profession teaching sessions. Teaching resources are being developed to enable use of this program outside of LIH Olivia’s Place in line with the company’s mission to effect change within rehabilitation across China.