Educational, Medical, Psychological, Nutritional and Physical/Rehabilitational CONSULTANTS NEEDED

RCM is currently assisting primary and secondary schools in a number of different countries. The issues they face with their students are often very similar to those that are being faced in North America. Some of these behavioral problems are related to medical difficulties. Many are not. While medical doctors are available in these countries, their medical capabilities are often far more centered around crisis intervention than chronic difficulties of a behavioral nature. As a consequence, consulting a medical doctor for classroom behavioral difficulties is often a waste of both time and money.

Since RCM has been involved in primary and secondary education in Suriname for over 25 years, and our director has become aware of many behavioral problems and resulting therapies, he has found many simple solutions to problems that were theretofore only addressed by drugs prescribed by medical doctors. Many of these drugs have increasingly been questioned, not only because of their side effects, but also because of withdrawal difficulties. In other cases, they simply did not solve the problem.

Due to some extensive rehabilitation necessary for one of their children some years earlier, Geoffrey and Nancy Donnan were introduced to relatively simple, parent/teacher applied therapies that resolved a good number of problems in their child. They discovered simple diagnosis routines and applied them in the school in Suriname which were of great assistance to a number of students. Conversations with a number of parents over the years have resulted in their gaining the same training and guidance from professionals in the U.S. to resolve a broad spectrum of combinations of physical and emotional difficulties in children.

While discussing some of these things during a trip to China, many questions were asked about how teachers and administrators could learn and apply these same things in the school there. It was during these discussions that far more questions were asked than Rev. Donnan could answer. However, through these discussions it was determined that a number of checklists and guidelines could be written and provided to their teachers to assist them in very basic diagnoses of whether the problem was of a medical, nutritional, psychological, behavioral or other type. It is with that in mind that it was decided that we should gather together a group of professionals or skilled amateurs who would be willing to volunteer their time to assist in developing and fine-tuning a series of checklists based upon classroom situations and requests that would be submitted from these schools.

Helping the First Responders

It will be easy for some to say that this will be meddling in matters that should be dealt with only by on-sight professionals. But the reality is that there are often no on-sight professionals available in most of these places. In the same way that a parent at home, and especially a home-schooling parent, is the first responder and the first observer of the wide variety of things that happen with children and need to know how to respond; so also the teachers and administrators are the first responders at these various schools. Consequently, we look at these guidelines and checklists as something of a "stop-gap" or "field medic" type approach. The goal is to help the teachers and administrators to develop systems and procedures to categorize and prioritize problems and determine what definitely needs outside professional help and what can be addressed by the school staff.

Many of the issues that are encountered are attention deficit, hyper-activity, reading comprehension, outbursts of anger and a whole range of difficulties that affect a student's learning and classroom situation. Some are as easy to identify as removing caffinated soft-drinks, monosodium glutenate, artificial colorings, high sugar content candies and drinks, getting eyeglasses, monitoring good sleep habits, and such. Others are more significant and complex and will require the assistance of professionals. However, what is often common sense in North America is not so in other places.

The Plan

The plan at this point is to gather together various professionals who are willing to volunteer their time to do the following:

• Establish a basic set of issues and categorize them.

• Put together a set of guidelines for basic diagnosis for the different issues and cross reference where applicable and necessary.

• Provide these to the schools and then begin to trouble shoot them as they are used.

• Allow for email contact with the schools on a case-by-case basis when the guidelines and procedures are found to be insufficient or in cases not covered.

• Put the professionals and the school in contact with each other, in special cases, to deal directly with the issues.

• Continue to refine and improve the materials based upon the cases that arise.

• Provide information learned from one school and environment to others.

Commitment

It is hoped that this will not be a particularly time-consuming task for any one person, though there will need to be consultations and discussions and time spent in writing and refining the materials developed. We would like to get a commitment from those interested as to the extent of their willingness to participate. We see several types of people:

• Generalists who are interested in this whole process and willing to help in writing, editing and compiling the guidelines/procedures.

• Specialists with skills in particular fields who would work generally only in those areas.

• Professionals with specific or broad experience, particularly those with a wholistic approach to such issues.

• Medical professionals with familiarity to non-pharmacological approaches to treatment (drugs are often very expensive or unavailable).

• Others with experience in classroom and student difficulties and their solutions.

• Counselors to home-schoolers especially skilled in training parents (and thus teachers in this case) how to diagnose and remedy various issues with students.

• Computer and word processor skills to quantify and communicate the results of this entire process.

• Website coordinator, to keep a secure website of the information that has been discovered that can be accessed by our colleagues abroad to keep abreast of the latest updates, discoveries or changes.

Procedures and Communication

Initially, our intended approach will be to have a group email discussion that is restricted solely to this group of people so that we can discuss the kinds of situations and ideas on how to approach the problem. Rev. Geoffrey Donnan, RCM's director, will be directly involved in this initially until someone who will be able to serve as the coordinator on this project can be appointed. Initially, he will be the liaison with the schools until a routine and set of procedures have been set up. Once set up, the plan should not need his on-going involvement.

Field Trips

For those who are interested and able, we would expect to plan trips to the particular schools involved to develop a better familiarity on the part of the team at home of what the schools are facing. Training will also be of great importance as the procedures and processes are set up, since some are better communicated in person than by print media alone. This will not be a requirement, but it will certainly be an added benefit for those who wish to take this as a serious ministry.

Long-Term Objectives

In the long-range, we think there may be some use of this same information both at home as well as abroad for both traditional schools as well as home-schoolers. We don't know all of what God will do with this, but as the project grows, we see the potential of professional organizations desiring to be involved as it may be a means of them exposing their services to those who are in a proximity and/or financially able to available themselves thereof. We are not sure where such services may lead, but we do believe that this will be an excellent way to enhance the exchange of information which is often available to North Americans to those outside, to better help them serve their students for the glory of God.

For more information, contact

Rev. Geoffrey Donnan

Reformation Christian Ministries

13950 - 122nd St.

Fellsmere, FL 32948-6411 U.S.A.

Phone:  772-571-8030

Fax:  772-571-8010

Email:  president@reformation.edu