March 28, 2024
News
For Autism Awareness Month in April, we interviewed Nino Paatashvili, the director of the Child Development Center in Telavi. The centre in a small town in Georgia has been supporting the development of children since it was established in 2000. Caritas Czech Republic is closely cooperating with the Georgian government to develop state services for children and advocate for children's services that are not established in the region, including services for children with autism.
You have been running the Child Development Centre in Telavi for many years now. Can you tell us about the centre and what it provides?
Actually, I started the children’s development centre with nine children on the first floor of my own home. The city noticed that the centre was working well, and we obtained their trust and support. When the centre grew further, we moved it out of my house. That is why we can now have 300 children engaged in the programmes, which we are glad about. I am very happy that my team and I contribute to each child’s future.
Today, we have five different programmes in our centre. The first is for child development. Then we have a day centre for people with disabilities and a programme for children with autism. Furthermore, we set up a preschool, which includes education and early intervention. The last programme we have is childcare at home. Telavi also has a preschool, including education and early intervention, which complements the state programme.
Caritas Czech Republic has been developing services for people with autism in Georgia for several years. How did the organisation help establish the centre, including the autism programme?
In 2015, Caritas Czech Republic started working in primary healthcare in Georgia and we heard they would also help with childcare services. We reverted to the local government, which Caritas Czech Republic works closely with, and asked them to train our two specialists. They did a therapist course, and in 2016, we started directly cooperating with Caritas Czech Republic. I would like to express special gratitude to Caritas Czech Republic and their employees who made the cooperation very comfortable.
The training of the two therapists Caritas Czech Republic did was a great contribution to the high-quality autism service that Telavi has now. One of the most important things they learned in the training was identifying autism in children. Another important task was the supervision process. That means that in close cooperation with the Iliad State University’s child development centre, specialists and supervisors came to us to oversee the working process and assess the quality of the results. Thanks to the support of Caritas Czech Republic, the centre got tools to create a deeper understanding for the children and trained two specialists, a psychologist and a psychiatrist.
You have been cooperating with Caritas Czech Republic since 2016. What has changed after the support you received?
Now parents can come to the centre to determine if their children might have autism, without having to make the the long journey to Tbilisi. In addition, we cooperate with all the institutions that the children go through. For instance, our specialists for early intervention train primary health practitioners and kindergarten teachers and cooperate with the kindergartens and schools to which the children are referred. We have some children going to the kindergarten in Telavi, therefore, it is essential for us that Caritas Czech Republic supports the kindergarten in Telavi and trains the teachers there. The cooperation and common understanding of the two institutions is crucially important.
In 2016, we started to work with only four children with autism. Caritas Czech Republic founded the involvement with those children and provided them with 18 lessons in total. Today, we have 40 children in our autism programme. After the project with Caritas Czech Republic ended in 2020, we continued our activities and advocated for the rights of autistic children to obtain funds. We succeeded and the municipality hall supported our autism programme. It is still not enough, but we hope this will change next year.
You described how the situation for children with autism in Georgia has improved significantly over the past years. Can you tell us what the situation is like nowadays?
When we started working towards helping children with autism, many parents were not able to recognise that their children have autism and they usually thought they have different characteristics and problems than other children. One of these parents could not understand her child’s characteristics for long, but nowadays she actively collaborates with us and supports the centre. Soon she is also becoming a trainer. Even though there is still so much to do, the situation is much better than in the past. Regarding the primary healthcare, yes, the situation has changed. The primary health practitioners are more knowledgeable and can assess the situation better. Nowadays, recognition of autism is more common than back in the day, but there is still much to be done.
What do you like most about your job?
I like everything about my job. My job is my life. I am a paediatrician by profession, but I always wanted to find a way to develop myself further. That is why I also did a social worker certificate course. I am thrilled to have such an excellent staff here and many great children; you would be shocked by their work.
The centre and its programmes have developed a lot in the past years. What plans do you have for the future?
We need to develop a day centre for children with severe disabilities, including autism. Further, we want to establish the parent school here as well. In addition, I would like to buy solar panels instead of ordinary energy sources, as we have a reasonably considered feed for electricity and ECC. I hope that we can get some funding for that. This would help us to open the day centre.
Caritas Czech Republic provides long-term support for people with autism
Caritas Czech Republic has supported the Georgia government in improving health and social services for years. Thanks to the project by Caritas Czech Republic, funded by the Czech Development Agency (CzechAid), the services to support people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were improved and expanded. The project included, for example, training hundreds of rural doctors to identify the risks and characteristics of autism in children. Through the training that Caritas Czech Republic provided, there are now more specialists in the area; furthermore, advocacy meetings raised the funding for the autism programme.
Many thanks go to the Czech Development Agency, for providing the opportunity to the Georgian government to implement such an important project in the healthcare system of Georgia.
