Tacpac Tutuorials in Albania
I am Rexhina, a physiotherapist from Albania working at the “Tek Ura” centre. My first contact with Tacpac was in September last year. My supervisor, who is also a physiotherapist from UK, had the idea of using Tacpac as part of our rehabilitation for children with severe disabilities. It was an exciting idea because we were the first and only people to be using Tacpac in Albania.
Then I contacted Hilary, the creator of Tacpac, to let her know what we were doing and asking for her opinion. So, I had a couple of Tacpac tutorials with her on Skype. I found these very helpful. These sessions were like personal online training where Hilary explained to me the theory behind Tacpac.
What happened in the tutorials
In these Tacpac tutorials I had the chance to ask her about some specific cases. I also gained advice about certain techniques and objects needed in each Tacpac set. We held the camera in the session, so that Hilary could see us working with the children. The Mums were especially pleased with the information they received on how to do Tacpac with their children. We learnt how to place them, how to use the objects and we were really pleased to know how much we were doing right. Through doing the Tacpac tutorials we felt much more connected to the Tacpac community. In fact we can start one of our own here in Albania where there is nothing like this for our children.
From this I was able to understand the programme better for the children and encourage the parents with their children.
If you are unable to attend training in the UK, I highly recommend that you sign up for Tacpac Tutorials. It has made a big difference to how I run our sessions. I am also interested in doing some research into Tacpac, as I’m doing my Masters thesis on the topic of “Sensory therapy approaches” at the University of Medicine in Tirana.