Friends of the Care Project (FOTCP) is an independent Not for Profit registered Charity in Antigua and Barbuda. The organisation was established in 2011 to help improve the facilities and specialist therapy provided at the Care Project (CP). The organisation is seeking to build capacity through an expansion in the range of services available to children and their families, not only at the new Family Therapy Unit Centre that was constructed with funding from The Maria Holder Memorial Trust and the Jumby Bay Fund but also in various communities on the island. Throughout Antigua and Barbuda there are over 100+ children with disabilities living in family homes (this is based on the WHO data). The statistics are based on children between the ages of 0 to early adulthood and the Friends of the Care Project intends to provide services to children between the ages of 0 to 16 and their families.
Project Summary
Assessments carried out by the Outreach Project Team to children at clinic visits and schools showed that the children they interacted with would benefit immensely from having a special needs teacher with Psychology and special needs and therapeutic training as well as the need for more special needs teaching, occupational and physiotherapy as well as to have a need for communication support either as a consequence of intellectual disability or physical or sensory disability, resulting in having received a lack of nurture and education to enable these skills to develop fully.
Funding was provided by The Maria Holder Memorial Trust for the provision of a Speech and Language Therapist who will essentially work not only with the disabled children at the Care Project and communities but also other children who have speech problems. The project is seeking to target at least twenty (20) children a year over the three period of funding.