inclusion Archives - St Gregory's Foundation

A window on Communication Space’s work with non-verbal, autistic adults

Posted on 10th March 202510th March 2025 By Sarah.SGF

When you come across someone who is non-verbal, their life may seem to be shrouded in mystery, their thoughts and feelings inaccessible. Unless you know someone well who is non-verbal, the chances are that you feel rather daunted by interacting with them. Without help to bridge this gap, people who are unable to speak can become incredibly isolated. Fortunately, techniques do exist for enabling people we once thought could not communicate, to express their wishes, make choices and connect with others. Our colleagues at Communication Space are introducing these techniques to the Russian-speaking world. This beautiful video that they have made gives a fantastic insight into their work.

A note for non-Russian-speakers. Open the video in You Tube, open the settings, select subtitles. Turn subtitles on by selecting Russian. You can then go back into subtitles and select auto translate to get auto-generated English subtitles.

Călărași project in Moldova helps Samuel

Posted on 3rd March 202517th March 2025 By Sarah.SGF

Thanks to generous donations from our supporters, we have been able to employ a speech therapist to provide vital support to children with special needs in the Călărași region of Moldova. Samuel is one of the children who we have been able to help. Seeing him thriving and making progress, we are very grateful to everyone who helps us keep these services going.

Our colleagues from the Wish centre tell us:

Samuel, a 9-year-old boy with Down syndrome, from Calarasi, is absolutely full of energy and curiosity. He is a cheerful, affectionate and curious child. He loves horses and could spend hours looking at pictures of them or listening to stories about horse adventures. We can see that he has leadership skills: he communicates with the other students with gestures or sounds, and he wants to be understood and appreciated. During games, he likes to be listened to, and when he feels that someone is paying attention to him, he gets even more excited.

Due to his disability, Samuel experiences challenges in communication and social interaction. To develop his skills, he needs speech therapy, educational activities and behavioral support, which fortunately we have been able to provide for him since 2020. In 2022, he started school in the 1st grade, which represented an important step in his development. At the center and at school, he learns to communicate more effectively, express his emotions, needs, preferences and interact with other children.

Samuel’s progress is visible: he has learned to use more words and gestures to express his wishes, he is more attentive and involved in activities. His family is proud of him and supports him every step of the way. The teacher and specialists from the “Wish” center are impressed by his effort and desire to learn. His fellow students have learned that Samuel is a special child and very kind. They all get on very well with him.

How Timofei is thriving thanks to our Deaf Club

Posted on 13th February 202513th February 2025 By Sarah.SGF

In St Petersburg, we support a Club for pre-school children with impaired hearing and their parents. Timofei is nearly three and has been a member of the Club with his mama for a few months. He is one of several club members who have additional needs as well as being deaf. Fortunately, because the Club is part of the Early Intervention Institute in St Petersburg, his family has been able to access support from an Occupational Therapist, which has very quickly made a huge difference.

Training benefits children straight away

Posted on 13th January 202513th January 2025 By Sarah.SGF

We are delighted that, with your help, the lead therapist at our Moldovan partner, Rain Kids, has been able to start her studies to develop her skills in working with autistic children. A particular focus of Ana’s traininng has been early intervention with young children aged between 12 and 48 months. We all know how vital these early years are for child development. Providing early support can make a great difference to an autistic child’s communication skills, their behaviour and relationships in the family. Rain Kids are finding that more families are coming to them with their concerns at this early stage, so it is very positive that our colleagues now feel better equipped to help them.

A big thank you from one of our deaf club families

Posted on 19th December 202419th December 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Valentina Balobanova, who runs the Deaf Club we sponsor in St Petersburg, was doing her shopping recently when a woman stopped her. This was Nina, who used to go to the Deaf Club with her son Nikita. He is now twenty, but his mama still remembers Valentina and the Deaf Club. The meeting prompted her to write a thank you letter to Valentina, the other staff at the Early Intervention Institute, and to you, the donors who keep the Club running.

“I would like to thank the Early Intervention Institute and Valentina Balobanova for the great help they gave me and my son son. A few words about us. My name is Nina Nikitina and my son Nikita was born in 2004. A year later, I found out that he could not hear and he was diagnosed with hedrocephalic syndrome (which was cured). Well, it would be an understatment to say that it was a tragedy for me. My world simply collapsed. I was raising him alone, and I had absolutely no idea what documents needed to be completed, or what to do with all this. Somehow, by chance, while sitting in the hallway of the audiology center, one of the mothers told me about the Early Intervention Institute. She told mme that they have an excellent diagnostic service there, and run classes. After some time, I realized this meeting was an incredible grace of God. Having come to the center, our family found care and friends with the same difficulties. I found out where to go, what documents to fill out, what benefits I was entitled to, and where to get his hearing aid serviced. Basically, I learned everything I needed here. I have never met such warm people before. We didn’t miss a single class or event that took place at the institute. This became our second home. I want to thank the sponsors who make this possible from the bottom of my heart. You do an incredible miracle for us, such families, children.”

Winter newsletter out now

Posted on 27th November 202427th November 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Our winter newsletter is out now. You can read how your generous response to our summer appeal allowed us to rebuild the dining room of the Sunflower summer camp after it was destroyed by fire.

Many of the stories in this issue are about the difference your donations are making to disabled young people. We have Ilya, who is suprising his mother by making great progress even at the age of 27. We have news from Rain Kids in Chişinău, Moldova, who are benefitting from training for a key member of staff.

Our Christmas appeal this year is to help Adelina and other children who like her have special needs in Calarasi, Moldova. Can you help us raise £5,000 to fund a speech therapist and a special needs teacher for one year?

Finally, if you download the PDF version of the newsletter, you will find extra stories and details of our Christmas cards and gifts, which didn’t fit in the blog.

Read the newsletter’s first story

Adelina’s story

Posted on 27th November 202427th November 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Adelina (on the left in the picture) is 9 years old and has Down Syndrome. She struggles with language and communication, but these difficulties don’t stop her from being eager to express herself and trying to make herself understood. She loves music and will arrange the other children in a circle while she pretends to play the guitar or claps along with her favourite songs. The children watch her and even applaud at the end of the song.

This year our Christmas appeal aims to raise £5,000 to pay for a speech therapist and a special needs teacher to support children like Adelina. Read on and you will find out how the team at The Wish Centre are helping Adelina flourish.

Donate now

Alternative Communication improves every aspect of life

Posted on 14th October 202414th October 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Andrei is 21 and he has Fragile X Syndrome, which affects his learning ability. He has been coming to Communication Space for group and individual sessions for more than ten years.

Alternative Communication is helping him in so many areas of his life. He uses the centre’s visual timetable and timers to understand what is going on through the day, which helps him stay calm.

He continues to make progress with his communication book. He can put together simple phrases and knows around 300 symbols. He can ask for help or ask for a break if an activity is getting too much. He has even started keep fit exercises using visual prompts. Now Andrei is working on the skills he will need to start using a tablet to communicate.

Communication Space write on their website:

People think that it’s all good here. And it really is good. But it didn’t happen by accident. It is the result of our accumulated experience and constant effort, which we put into creating a welcoming space, building a good team, putting together our programme, establishing our relationship with families. It’s good here because we don’t rely on formal interactions where the teaching task or organisational task is the most important, but on humanity.

What is for sure is that without the ability to communicate, it would all fall apart. Finding ways to communicate with those who can’t use speech is the key.

Help more people benefit from Alternative Communication

The value of a good supervisor

Posted on 9th July 20249th July 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Since we started working together, The Rain Kids Centre’s goal has been to improve the quality of the therapy they are able to offer children with developmental disabilities, such as autism. St Gregory’s has been funding supervision by an experienced therapist from Romania. She has visited to observe the work of the centre and provide training sessions.

Progress for Gordei

Posted on 3rd June 20243rd June 2024 By Sarah.SGF

7 year-old Gordei has been making great progress with his communication book thanks to the skilled professionals at Communication Space.

St Gregory’s works in partnership with Communication Space to introduce alternative technology to Russia to benefit people with disabilities. Gordei is one of the children who has recevied bespoke teaching, opening up new ways of communicating.

Gordei has cerebral palsy, which affects his ability to speak. fortunately, his parents found Communication Space, and he is now learning how to use PECS – a language of visual symbols contained in his communication book.

Until recently, Gordei would only use one symbol at a time. He would rely on the person he was “talking” to being able to guess what he meant. The therapists at Communication Space have made some simple adjustments to the way the symbols are arranged in his book, and now he is putting two or even three symbols together in phrases. Recently, in answer to the question, “How are you?”, Gordei answered “bad” and then himself found the symbol for “cold”. It is already becoming easier for those around him to understand Gordei. The solutions may seem simple, but it takes skill, empathy and patience to make this kind of breakthrough. We are so glad our colleagues are helping train others so that many more children like Gordei can express themselves.