Family Partners Programme: Family Relationships Breakthrough
Six-year-old Xuanxuan belongs to a family of four. However, her family situation is quite complicated. Neither of her parents reside with her. Though they are not divorced, they both live and work in different locations.
Xuanxuan’s father works at a factory in Hunan province and earns only about 2,000 RMB per month, which is certainly not enough to support the family. Her mother, who struggled to cope with her daughter’s Down syndrome symptoms, decided to seek employment outside of the home to help out financially.
Currently, Xuanxuan is living with her grandparents at her 21-year-old sister’s home. Xuanxuan’s great-aunt and uncle care a lot about her. In fact, it was her great-aunt who found out about our Family Partners Programme (FPP) online and arranged for her to come for an assessment and enroll in the programme.
Intervention with Encouragement is Key
Xuanxuan began attending classes at our Family Services Centre in July 2018. Her performance in class has shown marked improvement since last year. She is doing much better at following instructions and completing her tasks. Also, she has increasingly enjoyed playing and interacting with other children.
Xuanxuan’s grandfather shared that his granddaughter has begun proactively greeting strangers in their housing complex and communicates with them using simple phrases. Grandpa is delighted to see these significant changes in his granddaughter within such a short period of time.
An added blessing is that Xuanxuan’s great uncle is still employed as a teacher at a local high school. He helps to complement and reinforce at home what Xuanxuan is learning during her weekly classes at our Family Services Centre.
Progress that Benefits the Whole Family
The most exciting change in Xuanxuan’s life by far has been her improved relationship with her mother. Knowing that her mum was mostly uninvolved, the FPP staff decided to intentionally send her updates on Xuanxuan’s progress. As well as the written updates, they also included photographs and videos to motivate and encourage her.
Gradually, Xuanxuan’s mum started to pay more attention to her daughter and has been more willing to make contact with her. She sometimes calls just to chat with Xuanxuan and sees her making progress. She is very pleased with both the quality of the FPP and her daughter’s steps forward. She has expressed her gratitude towards the FPP staff in helping her child and lightening the burden of Xuanxuan’s grandparents.
We hope that one day she will be able and willing to move home and take care of Xuanxuan.
Join us as a Family Partner to keep struggling families like Xuanxuan’s together!
