- Vision
- Hearing
After 27 years of getting to know Liverpool locals and foster carers Jane and Tony and the 10 children they have fostered with hearing or vision loss, it was time for us to wish them well as they slow down to prepare for a well-earned rest from helping others.
Our therapists, who have built strong relationships with the couple, recently held a celebration at our Liverpool centre to acknowledge the significant contribution Jane and Tony have made to many lives, going above and beyond to give them the best start in life.
Jane and Tony did everything, and more,’ says NextSense key worker Andrew, who coordinates a specialised team to provide early intervention support to his young clients, putting families front and centre to provide strategies and techniques they can use at home and within their community.
The couple has fostered some 100 children with disabilities over 40 years and saw each challenge they faced as a learning opportunity. Jane embraced the knowledge that acting early for children with hearing and vision loss makes all the difference, and absorbed all the techniques that our speech, occupational and physical therapists taught her in order to leverage her children’s strengths.
— JaneTwo children we cared for were blind, so we used to use different signs with them. They taught me how to squeeze their toe if we were going to communicate certain things. If we were going to use medication, we would have a sign for that. We learned a lot of things like that that we would never have known... We learned on the job.
Jane also took it on herself to learn Makaton, a language programme that uses symbols, signs and speech to enable people to communicate, as well as Australian Sign Language (Auslan).
Tony, who worked as a special education teacher, employed many of the strategies he had learned in the classroom back at home. He had the same compassion for his students as for his children, introducing a breakfast club after noticing some of them were going hungry.
He concurs that his experiences at home and school weren’t always easy.
— TonySometimes you struggle, but that’s just part of life.
Jane says that bringing the children in her care to therapy at NextSense was one of the highlights of her week. Having local access to hearing and vision services in one place made a big difference and she also developed wonderful bonds with the therapists, including Andrew, whose patience and humour made all the difference.
‘We make sure all services align and form a team around the child to work on goals that are relevant to them and their family, and where possible, supporting each other,’ Andrew says.
— Andrew, NextSense Key WorkerWhether it’s occupational therapy, speech therapy or physiotherapy, we make sure we’re working on these goals in tandem with each other, so the families don’t have to think about 15 different goals in one week.