  {"id":17279,"date":"2008-09-26T06:26:23","date_gmt":"2008-09-25T22:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/fiji-to-benefit-from-gillians-skills\/"},"modified":"2008-09-26T06:26:23","modified_gmt":"2008-09-25T22:26:23","slug":"fiji-to-benefit-from-gillians-skills","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/fiji-to-benefit-from-gillians-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiji to benefit from Gillian\u2019s skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"title\">\n<div id=\"titledesc\">\n<p>C262\/08<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span>26 September 2008<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ of Technology graduate Gillian King is off on the adventure  of a lifetime to work as a paediatric special education therapist in Fiji as  part of the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) Program, an  Australian Government AusAID initiative.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old occupational therapy and education graduate, of Attadale,  will work in the Fijian Ministry of Education\u2019s Early Intervention Centre (EIC)  during her 12 month assignment.<\/p>\n<p>Gillian will train EIC teachers, develop and implement education and therapy  programs plus develop and strengthen inclusion programs for children with  special needs in mainstream and special education schools.<\/p>\n<p>Since graduating from Curtin in 2007, Gillian has worked as an OT at The  Centre for Cerebral Palsy and at the Koondoola Child Development Centre but was  keen to broaden her work experience overseas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been interested in the AYAD Program for a while and have kept an eye  on the assignments offered over the past three years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis particular position stood out for me because I felt I had the skills to  do it and because I\u2019m particularly interested in inclusive education and working  with young children with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a big responsibility being involved in setting up programs and  developing policies as it has the potential to have a big impact on the  direction of special education and paediatric therapy services in Fiji in the  future, but also exciting at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While studying at Curtin, Gillian was involved in a number of programs that  helped her to gain the skills necessary for her new role.<\/p>\n<p>She was part of the Go Global program at Curtin where she travelled to China  to gain practical experience in the Shanghai Bo Ai Children\u2019s Rehabilitation  Centre, undertook an honours project looking at the transition of young children  with disabilities into mainstream schooling and took on an additional elective  unit in special education on top of her normal study load.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to contributing to my host organisation\u2019s vision of  change for their service and working with them to develop achievable and  sustainable systems of practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gillian flies to Fiji on 3 October to take up her new position.<\/p>\n<p>People interested in finding out more about the AYAD program can visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ausaid.gov.au\/youtham\">www.ausaid.gov.au\/youtham<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Note to Editor\/COS:\u00a0 A photo of Gillian is available on request.<\/p>\n<p><span>Modified: 26 September 2008<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ of Technology graduate Gillian King is off on the adventure of a lifetime to work as a paediatric special education therapist in Fiji as part of the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) Program, an Australian Government AusAID initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17279","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Âé¶¹Ö±²¥"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17279"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}