Universiti Malaya Community Engagement Centre (UMCares)

PartiCPate in PRACTIVE

PRACTIVE reflects a practical home program and actively can be done and supervised by parents of children with CP at home. In order to have a feasible home program for a tangible outcome, an action research approach was done with the Alliance of Children with CP (GAPS). GAPS is a non-governmental organization (NGO) and parents support group, in which one of their focuses is on empowering parents with CP children in managing their child through programs with healthcare professionals. The main aim of this project is to empower CP community with knowledge and awareness on basic home program. This was a participatory action research project. First, the home activity guide in the form of a guidebook and video (PRACTIVE) was worked together with GAPS. The second phase was series of training of trainers (ToT) workshops with community. Impact of the study was evaluated quantitatively with Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) questionnaire scores and qualitatively with five series of focus group discussions (FGD) after workshops.

Six series of workshop were done at various places in the community identified by our community partner, GAPS. A total number of 130 participants had participated which were amongst parents, volunteers and teachers for special needs children.The main themes identified includes better knowledge, understanding and awareness on the basic home activity for their child which leads to increase confidence and motivation to practice at home with their child. Most participants’ scored 85% and above in all domains even before the workshop.

Across all different background of participants, there were many similarities in the understanding, attitude and practice of home-based activity for children with cerebral palsy. The workshops using PRACTIVE book and video might have assisted to better understanding hence the practice of performing home activity for children with CP.

Project information

Project Execution: 20 months
Location :Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Kelantan,Cyberjaya
Target Community: Advocates of Childeren with Cerebral Palsy
Numbers of Community benifited: 162 people

Outcome of project

Publication of PRACTIVE toolkit in the form of guidebook and videos which is in bilanguage (English and Malay) which is easy to understand by community (advocates of cerebral palsy) in order to empower them with basic and practical knowledge of CP.

Engagement with various community groupd through our main community partner, GAPS

Empowerment through increasing community knowledge and understanding of basic home activity for children with CP was gathered through Focus Group Discussion. Results of interview analysed qualitatively.

Future Enhancement

Through the focus group discussion after several ToT workshops with community, we gathered positive feedbacks from them, and also few GAPS member able to conduct the ToT sessions with supervision by facilitators from the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine during the last 2 ToT workshops.
GAPS as the main community partner in this project independently able to reach out and gather participants for each ToT workshop during this project (total of 6 workshops).GAPS incorporate PRACTIVE as one of their activity during the World CP Day celebration on 6^th October at Tamarind Square, Putrajaya
After this project ended in September 2019, GAPS had inivitation to conduct PRACTIVE ToT workshop, in which few of Paediatric Rehabilitation therapists in UMMC were also invited to give support.