Therapeutic Program Excellence Committees and Purposeful Impacts at home!!!

GiGi’s Playhouse guides and support individuals with Down syndrome and their families through life’s milestones and celebrations. We do this through purposeful and progressive programs from birth through adulthood. As part of GiGi’s Playhouse longtime commitment to our families, we’ve embarked on revisions and expansions of our therapeutic programming. Our goal is to ensure that GiGi’s Playhouse programs encourage participants to develop at their own pace and provide educational tools to families so that this development continues while at home.

To better serve children with Down syndrome, GiGi’s Playhouse has launched a Therapeutic Excellence Committee to refine and evolve GiGi’s Playhouse Signature Therapeutic-Based Programs. The curriculum and activities within these programs help enhance fine motor skills, gross motor skills, speech & language development, and socialization skills. With enhanced curriculum, training, metrics, and parent resources: GiGi’s Playhouse can maximize program success and the invaluable growth of self-confidence and independence in all participants.

The Therapeutic Excellence Committee is comprised of licensed physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech & language pathologists, licensed K-9 teachers; as well as key volunteers (Playhouse Ambassadors) who assist in the delivery and marketing of each program to Playhouse families.

Key deliverables from this committee include the following:

• A program guide for Playhouse staff/volunteers to deliver the 10 Signature Therapeutic-Based Programs
• Development of 5 “Best of All” Parent Education Booklets that support growth & development at home
• Implementation a bi-annual family survey to measure growth & program satisfaction
• Proper training for program staff and program volunteers
• Program scalability and sustainability through best practices

Our AMAZING committee is already making great progress with revisions to the “Leaps & Bounds” program including parent take-home resources that highlight goals and tools for achievement.

GiGi’s Playhouse Therapeutic Excellence Committee is building purposeful progression into our programs! Purposeful progression captures the growth and development of individuals with Down syndrome throughout each stage, but recognizes that we all grow and develop at a pace that is unique to us. Purposeful progression means that Best of All looks a bit different for each of our participants – which may lead to sitting a little longer at circle time, completing one additional math problem or greeting one additional customer each time we come to GiGi’s!  Our committee has worked hard to update programmatic goals, revise our structure, and develop tools for families and program leaders to ensure that every minute spent with GiGi’s is purposeful and fun!

To this end, GiGi’s Playhouse is ALSO all about making purposeful progressions at home, and celebrating that progress every single day. These commitments sparked the brand new GiGi’s Balancing Line – revealed just last week at the 2015 GiGi’s Playhouse National Conference. GiGi’s Balancing Line helps build core muscles, brain development and mental focus in fun, everyday settings. But GiGi’s Balancing Line goes beyond muscles and fitness: it’s a way for ANYONE to pause, re-balance, and recommit to their own achievement.

Emery is already rocking his Balancing Line at home!!! This is the very essence of Generation G – where EVERYONE participates in the same manner, and where EVERYONE achieves their Best of All!!!