Siyakwazi 2022 Impact Overview

April Newsletter 2023

Inclusion Impact 2022

Inclusion at Siyakwazi in 2022 saw continued growth with an increase in the number of children with disabilities and their families supported. Access to services has also improved through the help of our referral process. A significant improvement is the increase in the number of children accessing Special Education Needs (SEN) schools. At the start of 2023, 12 children supported through Siyakwazi have started at a SEN school, a further 8 children exited Siyakwazi’s programme at the end of 2022 as they are in attendance at local SEN schools. This progress can largely be contributed to the development of relationships and awareness with local SEN schools. Information sharing with parents has supported access to services as well as an increase in confidence amongst parents as to the benefits of their children accessing education even when it is at a greater cost.

In 2022 there was 26% increase in the number of children with disabilities supported from 2021 and a 47% increase in the number of children with disabilities supported since 2020.

Other key developments for the past year included:
– Expansion of Siyakwazi’s Resource Centre to allow for a dedicated therapy room
– Partnership with Timion to support accelerated access to assistive devices
– The Research project which provided key insights and learnings towards Siyakwazi’s Inclusion Model
– An increase in the number of young children with disabilities identified (18 children under the age of 4 supported in 2022) and an increase in the number of children accessing SEN schools

School Readiness Impact in 2022

A total of 1617 children under 7 were screened with the Red Flag assessment in 7 Primary Schools and 24 ECD centres at the start of 2022. 481 children were supported with the catch-up programme over the year. The highest % of children identified as being at risk of falling behind was in pre-Grade R.
The below charts depict the % of children identified at risk of falling behind in each of the 3 age groups

Siyasizas conducted Catch-up groups in the classroom to support children identified at risk of falling behind. The Catch-up curriculum for 2022 comprised of 24 themes which included activities across literacy, numeracy and life/social skills as well as developmental activities which focused on fine motor, gross motor, crossing the midline, visual perceptual skills and sensory stimulation.

The graph below shows the after assessment conducted with the group at the end of the year. When comparing the before and afters of the three different age groups the team were able to use the analysis to inform implementation of the Catch-up programme in 2023. 

Some of what was noticed in the after assessment of children who were identified as Red Flag included the below: 

• Gross motor & pre-writing skills (pincer grip) were the highest performers across all 3 age groups
• visual perceptual skills was the lowest performer across all 3 age groups
• Pre-Grade R had some of the highest % improvements in the before and after including 438% improvement in fine motor and 400% improvement in visual perceptual skills

Early Learning (0-2) programme 2022

The Baby programme continued to see growth under the guidance and leadership of Mata Mzelemu, who oversees the programme in all locations in Kwanzimakwe and kwaXolo. The joy of this programme is the simplicity of its implementation. At the start of the year, we included a small adjustment to the programme to ensure that children’s goals were levelled up accordingly. Instead of doing a pre and post assessment in Jan and Nov, the team undertook to conduct pre and post assessments every 6 months i.e. 2 over the year, this allowed for revised goal creation for parents in line with their children’s age.