The Association of Parents and Friends of the „DAR“ Centre was founded by parents and professionals in 1991. At the beginning our main effort was aimed towards, and on behalf of existence and support of the day-care rehabilitation centre in Prague 6, mainly to improve the quality of care, the instalation of hydrotherapy equipment, purchasing of rehabilitation aids and tools.
At the present time the Centre „DAR“ is firmly embodied in the network of comunity services, its founder being the City of Prague, its managment Social Care Service department - DC Paprsek.
Our Association concentrates on the timely, early help for families with children with special needs and disabilities We try to provide support at the most strenuous and challenging time of their adaptation to the child´s disability, and facilitate the home care – since December 1994 we provide daily transport of the children to and from the day-care centre, and to and from the special classes at the school in Alžírská St., Prague 6. Since February 1998 we provide respite care over the weekend once per month for 7 children with special needs. We also organize meetings and events for the parents and children. At the same time we try to improve the level of the services provided by the Centre „DAR“ – by supporting further staff education, by financing hipotherapy once per week for children from the day-care, as well as for the children from special classes, who share its facility, and who are pupils of the Rooseveltova school in Prague 6.
The daily transportation to and from the facility is an essential service for the parents. Since the children are commuting from various parts of Prague and vicinity – not being able to find similar services elsewhere closer to their home - the commute is demanding for the parents both timewise and financially. Taking in account that most children can stay at the day-care centre not longer than 4 hours per day, it leaves the mother with barely 2 hours of „free“ time for herself. In cooperation with transport company, we currently provide transport for 17 -21 children.
As mentioned above, since February 1998 we provide respite care once every month over the weekend for 7 most needy children with severe disabilities. These are children for whom it is almost impossible – due to their special care needs - to find paid baby-sitting services, provided by commercial agencies.
In June 2000 we took the children for the first time for a week long respite stay to a resort in the countryside. Since then we organize these summer events every year. Altogether 17 -20 children with disabilities take part, and there are 20 adults to accompany them. In an emergency such as a sudden crisis in a child client´s family we are able to provide immediate individual respite care.
The goal of the respite care project is to help and support the families in their demanding everyday task of caring for children with disabilities, to enable them to draw new strenght and energy. And therefore consequently try to lower the likelihood of parents´ decision to place the children in institutional care, the reason for which being the mother´s exhaustion, disruption of parents´ relations, neglecting the needs of other siblings, etc.
The services provided by our civic association, together with the daily care at the day-care centre, and the education for school age children, enable the family to keep their child with disabilities at home.