Casa Esme – The Myosotis Trust

Esme House in numbers

Over 15 years of activity
More than 200 children with disabilities received therapeutic services at Casa Esme
50 children with disabilities currently benefit from the services of the day center
6 specialists are currently employees of the day center

Established in 2005, the Day Center for Children with Disabilities Casa Esme soon demonstrated its role and value in the local community. The services of the day center are recommended by specialists in the field and sought by the families of children with disabilities both for the fact that they meet real needs, insufficiently covered by state social services or other private services, and for the recognized quality of the instructive-educational act supported by the employed specialists.

Vision, mission and objectives

The Day Center for children with disabilities Casa Esme is for each family that haschildren with disabilities to have access to quality services, designed to the particularities of thefamily and the specific needs of the child with disabilities, in a good collaboration with state andprivate institutions in the community.

The Casa Esme Day Center for Children with Disabilities is to improve the quality of life of families with children with disabilities, offering services that address the child with disabilities, his family and the community as a whole.

Our goals:

To offer quality therapeutic services for children with disabilities, articulated to the specific needs of each beneficiary;
To offer support to families that have children with disabilities: psychological and social counselling services, individual and group, organizing workshops for parents;
To promote the school and social integration of children with disabilities through actions with addressability at local level

Types of activities we carry out

Since the establishment of this social service, the Myosotis Romania Association:

ensured the presence of a team of specialists trained to plan their interventions starting from the deepest possible understanding of the specific needs of each beneficiary, taking into account the diagnosis and the individual potential;
paid special attention to equipping the day center with specific materials, of good quality, as widely diversified as possible;
adapted workspaces and furniture to the changing needs of the group of beneficiaries; has made efforts for the professional development of the employed specialists, facilitating meetings, working sessions, exchanges of experience with specialists from Great Britain and USA.

The institution’s efforts to provide the best possible services for children with disabilities have been permanently joined by the personal efforts of employees to provide children with disabilities with diverse activities, a secure relational environment based on unconditional acceptance and the desire to highlights the child behind behavioral disorders, learning difficulties or barriers imposed by a (very) poor development of communication

How we work to implement our goals:

Our specialists offer children with disabilities therapeutic and instructive-educational services based on a personalized intervention plan that is built after a good understanding of the child’s diagnosis and the particularities of the family in which he develops.

We address children with disabilities between the ages of 4 and 11, offering them daily activities that aim to:

development of personal autonomy,
developing social and interaction skills,
cognitive stimulation,
speech,
motor development,
leisure education,
school skills development activities.

Social and psychological counselling services are available for the parents of the beneficiary children.

We periodically initiate, implement and participate (along with other local institutions) activities and projects with an impact on shaping the attitude of the population towards the school and social integration of children with disabilities.

We encourage and support people who want to volunteer for children with disabilities. Over time, they have volunteered at Casa Esme:

volunteers of the Young Volunteers Center project
learning students of the Pedagogical High School in the city – some of them are now
teachers in the county side
students in social work, psychology, special psycho-pedagogy
adults in the community who wanted to gain a better understanding of people with
disabilities.

We work with the boarding schools in the city in activities that aim to increase the level of acceptance of classmates with disabilities in the school population.

For the beneficiaries of the Esme House integrated in mainstream school education, we are open to direct collaborations with the teachers with whom the child works in class.

Priorities for the period 2020-2024

To offer instructive-educational services to children with disabilities in the community according to their individual particularities;
To develop a work program with the families of the beneficiary children aimed at increasing the level of understanding of the specific needs of children disability and improving the abilities of parents to relate to their children starting from understanding their child specific needs;
Encourage parents to support the day center by getting involved in the Parents' Committee
To redistribute the responsibilities within the multidisciplinary team so that each specialist has his own contribution in the implementation of O1 and O2;
To organize a program of supervision and interviewing of employees;
To support the participation of each employee in at least 2 courses for the development of the professional skills required at the workplace;
Maintain a high level of employee motivation both through the salary package and by promoting a clean and safe work environment in terms of physical and emotional health

Training needs:

Training in the practical approach to the sensory needs of children with sensory processing disorders
Working techniques with sensory materials; their adaptation to the particularities of the beneficiary
Game therapy – work techniques
Music therapy – working techniques
Emotional health of employees