MOVE provides moving stories

movetraining072: MOVE Training 2007
MOVE International Trainer Patti LaBouff helps align Bryce Tomlin’s legs so he can begin his first attempt at standing independently.
Thursday, June 21, in Bakersfield was hot -- 90 degrees plus. The kind of day that would motivate very few people to walk outdoors let alone take on a strenuous activity. Inside the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office (KCSOS) on 17th Street, three youngsters in assisted walking apparatuses were giving it all the energy they had so that someday they might be able to walk outside on their own. Observing, helping and taking notes were 36 adults who had come from as far away as Jasper, FL and Rifton, NY to take part in a two-day training offered by an organization called MOVE (Mobility Opportunities Via Education) International. MOVE operates through KCSOS, where it originated in 1986 through the vision and persistence of special education teacher Linda Bidabe.

Smiling eight-year-old Jazzmin Samuel had gathered quite a crowd around her in the hall. Standing straight up, supported by restraints, she slowly moved forward with great effort in her wheeled-apparatus with the encouragement of dozens. Each time she did, her father Eric and mother Tegdra smiled broadly. It was a long trip from Jasper, FL to Bakersfield for the Samuels. But then, the road has been long, ever since Jazzmin was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP) at birth.

Tegdra was a teacher, who had to eventually give it up, until recently, to care for Jazzmin. Eric is a family practice physician who spent years driving as much as three hours to work every day so that Jazzy could be near the care she needed. But it was not until they all discovered MOVE, two years ago, that Jazzmin learned how to support her own body weight and make independent movements. A defining moment happened on a basketball court recently.

"Tegdra and I were shooting baskets. Jazzmin saw us and came moving toward us in her trainer," Eric remembered. "We were screaming. It was an out of body experience."

A lot has happened since. Tegdra became a certified MOVE trainer, and part of the reason for coming to Bakersfield was so Eric could earn his MOVE basic provider certificate. The Samuels are planning on making a difference in their community by opening an after school day care facility which will include the MOVE program.

Across the hall from where the basic providers were learning from Jazzmin, another 36 people were being certified or, in Christine Shaw's case, re-certified, as site trainers. Shaw came all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland, where she has been the developmental director for MOVE Europe the past seven years. She has been to Bakersfield six times because there is no one in Europe who can provide her level of updated MOVE training.

The first-ever MOVE Site Trainer training took place in 1998 and has been an annual instructional event every year since at the MOVE International headquarters in Bakersfield.

"Back then, Linda Bidabe said what she taught us would work, and it did," Shaw said. "Now, we have lots of research and proof to show it does."

Which is why dozens of caregivers from all over the world come to Bakersfield every June -- to learn how to instruct  children with severe disabilties, using MOVE's written curriculum developed from years of observing trial and error techniques. Through discussions and hands-on training with children such as Jazzmin, they will return to their communities to help children gain the mobility to sit, stand and walk independently.

That Thursday afternoon training session made a believer out of Antelope, California's Renee Tomlin. Just a half year ago, she discovered the MOVE Web site, http://www.move-international.org, while browsing the Internet. She read about the training and decided to come with her four-year-old son Bryce, who has had CP since birth. Tomlin broke into tears describing what happened.

"Bryce was able to stand for the very first time without my help (using specially adapted equipment and restraints)," Tomlin said with tears running down her face. "I got so excited knowing he could do that. It's just incredible. I took a hundred pictures to show my husband."

All of those who attend, come away from the training knowing several things: progress will come in small increments, it will take constant, daily repetitions to happen and not all children will learn at the same pace. But the program has become so successful for the children using it, that MOVE has branched out to begin offering it to another under served part of the population, adults with severe disabilities.

Perhaps the best explanation of why MOVE works came from MOVE trainer Keith Whinnery.

"MOVE is never just about developing mobility skills," Whinnery said. "It's about using those mobility skills to enhance life skills to give our students a purpose to actively participate in life. I've often felt the most important letter in the word MOVE is the "O". Because what we are offering many have never had before -- Opportunity."

To learn more about MOVE, check its Web site, http://www.move-international.org.


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