Saving Minds and Bodies

Tracey Webster is Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Australia National Learning Program Manager. Tracey has a long career working with children with learning difficulties and disabilities in the Not For Profit sector.  In 1998 Tracey was asked by RMHC to create a program that would assist children with serious illness catch up on their missed education. Using a wholistic, multidisciplinary approach the Ronald McDonald Learning Program was developed to address this unmet need. From a pilot of 10 children back in 1998 the program now assists more than 700 at any one time and also provides teacher training in schools.

The Saving Minds and Bodies workshop will discuss the methology of the Ronald McDonald Learning Program (RMLP) and how the program aims to minimise  the negative effects of illness and treatment by providing a multidisciplinary approach to students returning to school following lengthy convalescense and school absence. The workshop will provide further information on 'EDMed'  - an accreddited Teacher Professional Development module which has beed created to assist classroom teachers better meet the needs of children with serious illness returning to their classrooms.