Social programs a win for NDIS participants

Dolly (supervisor) and Zorowar giving fruit salad the thumbs up. Pictures: STEWART CHAMBERS 342073_04

Special Care Australia is building resilience, social confidence and happiness in their Group Program participants, who enjoy different activities throughout the month.

Special Care Australia is an NDIS registered company “which provides support to people with special needs in their day to day activities and Supported Independent Living“.

Programs are specifically tailored for people with special needs to enjoy an inclusive and engaging environment.

On Monday 19 June, the group had a last minute change of plans from their expected barbeque program, when the wild winter weather kept the program indoors.

Instead, the group was tasked with making fruit salad.

“In today’s program we had fresh fruit and they had to make fruit salad, it was really fun,“ Special Care Australia Director Chitra Vig said.

Each month the SCA team creates a new plan for activities and programs.

“It’s all a lot of hands on and mostly community engagement activities to get our participants social interaction,“ Ms Vig said.

Last week, the group enjoyed indoor camping.

This month they have also visited the National Gallery of Victoria, McClelland Sculpture Park, Mini Golf, the Eureka Towers and Chadstone Shopping Centre.

There are programs for gardening, cooking, sport, music and dance.

“They build resilience, they really benefit from the social interaction and going out in the community,“ Ms Vig said.

“The participants are happy when they engage, they form bonds within the group and the peer-to-peer relationship is very important for them.“

Programs are culturally inclusive, with the group recently enjoying an Italian dining experience and making sombreros as part of Mexican Art and Craft Day.

“We encompass all different cultures,“ Ms Vig said.

“We also have school holiday programs called Yama Group.“

The Yama Group will be visiting Gumbaya world, Scienceworks, Gravity Zone, Werribee Open Range Zoo and many more exciting places over the Term 2 school holidays.