Educational Partnerships in Poland

Marta Bielawska, a teacher in Perkins’ Educational Leadership Program (ELP), hails from Warsaw, Poland, where she worked in the Tecza Early Intervention Center (EIC) after receiving her master’s in special education for students who are blind and visually impaired. She will return to Tecza after late May's graduation.

Marta’s EIC operates under the Association of Parents and Friends of the Blind and Partially Sighted, called Tecza, which means “rainbow.” While schools for the blind have existed in Poland for a while, she said, they couldn’t handle students with additional disabilities. Parents of children who are blind or visually impaired with additional disabilities rallied to form Tecza, which began with a daycare for their kids. An EIC and services for young adults soon followed as the need then became obvious.

Perkins ELP Marta Bielawska from Poland works with a young child in a classroom of the Deafblind Program.

Marta makes home visits to families within Warsaw, for kids birth to 3 years old, but for families outside of the capital, especially in the East where it’s more rural, she said, parents have to drive their kids into the center for vision services. Some drive as long as four hours to get there.

In Massachusetts, early intervention services are funded through the Department of Public Health, which contracts with Perkins School for the Blind for vision services. In Poland, vision services are made available from organizations who receive government grants to do so.

“In the Early Intervention Center, the psychologist, the vision therapist, the speech therapist and the sensory motor integration therapist work together,” Marta said.

Collaboration certainly exists within American partnerships; it’s just between separate agencies. In Poland, they consolidate expertise under the Tecza umbrella. The biggest partnership in Poland, then lies between these therapists in Warsaw’s EIC and the parents of the children who are blind, deafblind or visually impaired, with or without additional disabilities.

“Our goal is to show the parents how to use real meaningful life experiences to build communication, developmental skills, through daily life activities,” she said. “Some parents look for special therapy, but it’s more important to learn to build communication with the very little ones. They will not learn if someone comes once a week and tells them something. They are learning every time you change their diaper, for example—any time you are building their routines.”

Marta consoles a little boy in the Infant/Toddler parent-baby group at Perkins.

Because some parents are traveling far and wide to receive these sought-after Warsaw vision services, Marta and her colleagues encourage the parents to take video of their children in their natural environment. This solves several problems:

1. The EIC specialists can make better observations of the kids acting naturally; trekking to the center brings them out of their comfort zone.
2. Marta says she can observe her own practice and make improvements.
3. She can notice additional things, especially of the very young infants, which she didn’t notice while playing with /instructing them.
4. It compensates for the few hours these children actually spend at the EIC. Marta says she can watch the video, make assessments and then have suggestions ready for the parent the next day.

Marta must walk a fine line between too much and too little information she gives to parents on these sometimes scant visits to the EIC.

“We are trying to find a strategy for how we can help the parents so that they are not overwhelmed with advice. We give them two or three things to try each month.”

Marta works with the boy through coactive movements, holding his hands.

One thing she wishes Poland had were parent groups, like those offered on Perkins campus in Infant/Toddler services. Marta recognizes the importance, she said, of parents of children who are blind or visually impaired networking with each other for support and information. Blindness is not talked about as much in Poland, she said, which keeps parents more tight-lipped about coming together to talk about their difficulties.

When asked to compare American and Polish children who are blind or visually impaired, however, said Marta: “The kids are very similar between Poland and the U.S.”

Marta will return to Poland in a few weeks equipped with the new knowledge Perkins provided through our ELP program. For one, she can report the know-how to initiate parent-baby groups, like those she participated in at Perkins. Perhaps Marta will turn her Warsaw EIC, which now exists as a center at the end of a well-traveled rainbow ("Tecza" in Polish) some parents follow four hours out from the eastern countryside, into a network that partners parents and specialists alike. Together, this educational partnership can spread knowledge on blindness, deafblindness and visual impairments throughout households in Poland that need vision services.