MOVE training lures world visitors

Visitors from Japan, Denmark, Scotland, New Zealand and England, as well as American cities such as Albany, Austin, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Orlando and St. Louis converged on the birth place of MOVE (Mobility Opportunities Via Education) International. Ready to teach them to become Basic Providers, Advanced Providers and Site Trainers was the special education teacher who founded and developed MOVE in the 1980s and who administers the program on a worldwide basis today, Linda Bidabe.

As she exaggerated a slight stumble and a quick recovery, Bidabe told a classroom of would-be trainers, “Independent walking is falling off balance and regaining control.” Bidabe’s simplistic approach comes from her MOVE belief that through education the severely disabled can be freed from an existence in bean bag chairs.

Bidabe stressed that only through patience, repetition and using equipment that bears her original designs can independent movement result.

Verifiable proof of that came in the form of a demonstration by a MOVE student enrolled at the Harry E. Blair Learning Center in Bakersfield. Her name is Lauren Latta. In 1998, when Latta started MOVE training she couldn’t sit, stand or walk. Latta could not bear her own weight independently.

Three years later, as the crowded room of MOVE trainees watched, Latta was placed in a “pacer,” a device with wheels that holds the user up with restraints while providing mobility to move about independently. Latta didn’t just walk. She exercised speed, agility and coordination moving about the room, out the door and up and down the hallways. The audience broke into applause that was a mixture of surprise and admiration.

Many lessons came out of the week of training but one central point was made during the MOVE Site Trainers instruction on June 22. Without a team approach, MOVE may not succeed in the special education curriculum of public schools where it seeks to be.

Valerie Harbolovic, a physical therapist from Austin, Texas, who was there for the training agrees. The school district she works for uses MOVE.

“We’ve been using MOVE for five years now, and I always counsel parents that there is room for disagreement,” Harbolovic said. “We need them on our team, too. Empowering parents has to be part of the deal.”

Junko Shirasaki, an international MOVE trainer from Japan, lamented the obstacles she faces getting the team concept accepted in her country.

“We don’t have an ADA law (American with Disabilities Act), “Shirasaki said. “Education and medical services are separate, but parents expect to get those services. A group of parents started studying MOVE three years ago and since that time the movement has been growing up all over Japan. But we also don’t have nonprofit organizations. So far, we have had to rely on corporate grants to keep the program going.”

As Bidabe told her group of MOVE Site Trainers, “We don’t need to sell you. We need to give you enough tools to sell someone else on MOVE.”
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