Category: AMK Minds

CAS Project – AMK Minds final reflection

Lily on

After going through multiple rounds of action and doing self reflection within these sessions my project has now come to an end. Over the past few months this project has allowed me to expand as both a leader and collaborator. Although at times there were doubts as to whether we were doing the right thing especially from both my co-chair and I we overcame this through making sure that we maintained as much contact as feasibly possible with both our clients students and teachers in our school. One of the main issues that we asked ourselves was if it was ethical for us to create videos not knowing whether it was beneficial for our clients. Although we try to have as much communication as possible our main client of the service was not as communicative as we would have liked, making us doubt whether these videos were beneficial.This meant that we had to go through our school service department to try and reach our partners. As this was successful our perseverance and want for getting feedback allowed us to get that, which helped us to produce better videos for our clients. All of these issues helped me to grow skills that I would not have gotten in another activity or creativity.

Below I have attached an image of the questions that are new students asked are both Isaac and us. As a result of doing the service over the past three years and making it my project during CAS I was able to have an increased awareness on the issue of people living with intellectual disabilities in Singapore and globally. Although this was not an easy process it allowed me to grow into the leadership role making sure that everyone had their aims fulfilled.

CAS Project – AMK Minds second reflection

Lily on

As a result of me being co-chair of this service it was both a leadership role and a collaborative role. The teachers that facilitated the service were not as active as some are in others which meant that both my coach and I were relied upon to create and lead all service sessions. As a result of this every session we had to come up with a plan to make sure that our aim for the group with met. Our main aim in the beginning was to create videos that could be used by our service partners to help them to get moving again especially during this time when it was very difficult to go outside if you were intellectually disabled because of the mask mandate in Singapore. In the planning stage we asked all the students to come up with plans for their videos making sure that this was then approved by both us and our teachers. Additionally both my co-chair and I made our own plans for not only the service and where we see it going but also for the videos that were to be made.

In the action stage of our service this was mainly the making of videos to send to our clients. We chose to do this as we thought that this would be the best product that could be created during Covid with the limitations that we had upon us. The videos typically lasted from 3 to 5 minutes making sure that there was a warmup exercise section and a cool down, additionally included music that was both upbeat but not to lyric heavy as well as subtitles to help English as a second language clients. Here is an example of one of these videos.

 

 

CAS Project – AMK Minds initial reflection

Lily on

The service that I will be working with for my project is AMK Minds. Although I have previously worked with them in the past, this year we are focusing on a whole different type of format as we can’t meet them face-to-face. The aim of the service is to help people with intellectual disabilities to move around and have fun during our time in service. This was made extremely difficult as a result of not having the partners, clients or equipment available to us. This lead me to the investigation stage. Although I was familiar with the service it was totally different to what I had done before. I needed to ask and collaborate with people who did the service last year that worked with them during the Covid period as this was not when I worked with them. Through meetings with both students and our clients it allowed us to understand both their needs and how to go forth with this service in a new way that was fun for both the students in my service and the clients in my service.

AMK Minds – Final reflection

Lily on

One of the biggest advantages that we had was that both my co-chair and I knew the service very well. This let us be able to collaborate efficiently and effectively on both internal issues as well as external issues with our clients. As a result of the relationship that we have built up over the past three years it made it easy for us to work together allowing us to overcome challenges which presented over the course of this year service.

This year after taking on a more leadership position I got to learn more about the issue of how intellectually disabled people are treated in Singapore. As I had to teach others about the issue of intellectual disabilities in Singapore and how they typically do not live their life the same way that people without them do it made me realise what a significant issue this was. People that live with intellectual disabilities whether severe or mild deserve to have a good quality of life. Additionally when looking at the carers it makes me realise how much that they also give up for the clients. This made me appreciate the work more specially as it’s not an easy job to do.

Issak is the name of the man that we have been working with for the past three years and his resilience and commitment to the clients made us as a service more resilient, especially during Covid. We understand the importance of this issue and why it has to be done and therefore we established a real sense of importance within the service. We wanted to make sure that people that did show up was showing up for the right reasons and we made that very clear from the very beginning. Although not many people like to do service we aim to make the service as soon as possible making sure that people stay motivated and produce good products for our clients. Although not everyone was as engaged as others we overcame this by making sure that everything was checked thoroughly and if something was not of good quality at me it was never sent off. I have thoroughly enjoyed taking on a leadership position this year and I hope that when I carry on the service next year and do the hand off people continue to enjoy the service.

AMK Minds – Second reflection

Lily on

Due to COVID-19 there have been many issues in our outreach to our service partners, the most prominent one being that we were not and are still not able to meet them face to face meaning that instead of doing live sessions we had to figure out a way to provide the same service from afar. A risk we faced was that my co-chair and I would come up with a way of providing them with information and it would be invaluable to them. We overcame this by making sure that we called the partners multiple times before we started to plan and produce videos that we would then send to them.

Although we were able to overcome our internal issues, for me it raised the question of how ethical is it to make videos on rotation every 3 weeks which could be causing more harm than good? Because of this moral issue we tried to produce many videos of high quality making sure there is a clear plan for each video and that they get approved by both the two chairs and the head of local service before sending it off to our partners for them to show the clients.

AMK Minds – First reflection

Lily on

As I’ve worked with AMK Minds for the past two years and have built a relationship with not only the clients but also the partners this experience, for me, is about learning how to become more organised as a leader and how to collaborate with not only the new students in the service but also virtually with our clients and help them.

The main challenge for this service will be how to provide the same help we did in person, now online. This will mean that we will not only need to work as a group in the service but also take into considerations the ethics of working with disabled people virtually and if that’s the best route.

When this experience is over I would like to have grown into the role of being part of the leadership in the service and have successfully planned the year and thoughtfully achieved our goals.

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