Its been two weeks back in Ghana and things have picked up right where they left off. Before leaving from the U.S. I had the pleasure of meeting with Prof. Joel Arick, the author of STAR and FACTER autism therapy programs. After explaining my background and role in Ghana, he very kindly agreed to donate some items to the schools here. To my utter amazement, he was able to acquire the entire first and second levels of STAR, and the FACTER program with 3 training DVDs. I was blown away by his kindness as well as endlessly thankful towards STAR Autism Support for their generous donation.

As mentioned in the previous entry, my time here will now be shared. During the week, I will be doing speech therapy at Coledic (soon to be Multikids) as well as helping with the development of a program called Towards Independence. This is an hour long class everyday geared toward teenagers with autism who are in need of enhancing their life skills. So far we have done lessons on dish washing, going to restaurants, talking on the phone, times of day and telling the time, useful measurements, watering the garden, ect. No only are we teaching the students, it also gives me a chance to teach some of the other teachers here about lesson planning and essential adaptations and/or additions for students with autism in regards to curriculum. This increases the program's sustainability.

Using the STAR program guidelines and training DVDs, I'll be doing staff trainings at AACT every Friday. The first training, next Friday, will be focusing on positive behavior reinforcements, something that I feel particularly passionate about.

On top of all of this, International Autism Awareness Day, the 2nd of April, is only about 9 weeks away!!! This may sound like a long time to start preparing although not to Ghana. Over the next 2 months, I plan to really focus a lot of my spare time (haha) on networking and planning for events.

As for my re-entry back into Ghana... well according to most, I have lost all my tan and apparently ate too many Christmas cookies. Ah, it's nice to be back.

Many thanks for reading.
Casey

P.S. Good luck to the Ghanaian national soccer(football) team as they face Egypt in the African Cup of Nations Tournament finals this Sunday.