Monday 18 January 2010

L-Dopa for CP

Any conductors, parents, other professionals out there? Does anyone have any experience in the use of L.Dopa for a child with athetoid CP? it has recently come up as a suggestion for one of our kids and i'm a bit bemused about it and had never heard of it being used for CP before. I am aware of its use for people with PD but never CP. Does anyone have any knowledge, exprience etc...

Jules

Tuesday 12 January 2010

Just Do it - NICE Graduate Book

Happy New Year Bloggers!



One of the new arrivals this year was my copy of the new publication 'Just Do it' about NICE conductors' experiences since graduating. I have co-authored a chapter which i hope is not as painful for others to read as it was for me! Aside from that i feel compelled to comment on the publication as i thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Firstly i thought that all the chapters (except my own - its never nice reading your own stuff) were well written and engaging. It was interesting to see the differences and similarities between different graduates and the massive variety of experience for those more, or less, recently graduated.


I wanted to reassure some of the conductors who commented that they were not sure if the opinions and experiences they had were 'proper' CE, or if they had done things correctly. For example the conductor who had tried to run CE services in Vietnam was unsure that she had still provided 'proper' CE as she had to make huge changes in how she delivered the programme in such a different culture - but from what she had written i felt she was doing very 'proper' CE as the children should not be made to fit the system but the system must create a learning environment for the child. It sounded excellent although extremely challnenging.

There seemed to be some common themes in people's experiences; group sizes, conductors working on their own, language barriers, working within limited organisations (financial, space, resources etc...) and these similar issues seem to run through many conductors experiences across the world. I could certainly relate to this as i work for a charity and for a long time, worked most of the time on my own as a conductor.

I would be interested if anyone who has read the book has any feedback on my own chapter. Myself and Becky discussed all the things we wished we had known more about before starting work as conductors (not that we can know everything but we can try!). Also, since it has been a while between writing and publication of the book i feel i would have written different things about my experiences since we wrote the chapter.

I recommend anyone working as a conductor, or employing a conductor should read the book as it is an insight into the workings of CE; its challenges and achievements - and brilliantly the thread that runs through all the chapters is the continuing love and passion for the participants and the system that all the authors feel!