Holistic care for children, teenagers and adults with cognitive and multiple disabilities at ALUNA Center:
Early intervention Comprehensive evaluations Adaptation plan Classroom placements according to functioning level Special programming for community members with Learning Problems Safe workshops for adults Living for Quality Program Hypotherapy (therapy with horses) Aquatic therapy

ALUNA offers an interdisciplinary team of 125 professional specialists and aides trained in Neuro-pediatric, Psychology, Special Education, Neurodevelopment, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Aquatic therapy, Hypotherapy (horses), Phonoaudiology, infant education, with scientific research assistance in partnership with the organization Grupo Colomb-Suizo de Pedagogía Especial of Switzerland.

Pedagogic Model
One of the main strengths of the work at Aluna is the development of a comprehensive peadagogical process which involves clinical support. This combination of therapy and learning is guided by an educational development focus whose central axis is the disabled person.

For this reason, our approach provides intervention for the people we serve rather than for the identified disabilities; we think of the educational processes for children, teenagers and adults with their own names and particular conditions. We view the person as an integrated whole, and our work is meant to help build their whole potential Beyond the rehabilitation of motor or cognitive functions, we work on strengthening all the capacities of our children, teenagers and adults. To achieve this goal, we develop comprehensive processes that begin with an initial evaluation plan, creation of a life adaptation plan, the provision of an appropriate mental stimulation program, early intervention program, and educational classrooms for the development of safe workshops for Adults and departure profiles from the institution.

Evaluation and Adaptation Plan
When a child enters ALUNA, we celebrate their life history in which each department conducts an evaluation of our new community member. Each child or teenager at ALUNA is valued with care in a process that takes the necessary time, with a minimum of one month, to get to know the basic aspects of their personal development and likes and dislikes which provide clues for potential and necessary aid and enable ALUNA to develop individual attention plans and educational programs in the classroom. The classroom program in which the child is placed depends on the initial evaluation and resulting adaptation plan as well as the particular therapeutic and medical attention required.

Our Classrooms In each classroom at ALUNA there is a maximum of eleven students accompanied by a teacher, a trained pedagogical aid, university students and therapists (physiotherapists, phonoaudiologists, psychologists and occupational therapists) who create individualized work solutions. Through the collective work of teachers and therapists, our specialized team creates a learning environment in each classroom and through art exploration projects in which the pedagogical process celebrates individual and collective achievements.

ALUNA Pedagogy
The ALUNA education determines its actions starting frombased on the abilities and needs of each the student., according to his abilities and needs. Based on them, theAn interdisciplinary team elaborates develops an educationala pedagogical and complementary theraptherapeutic ies work plan, for to achieving the centraltwo primary objectives: to improve the overall quality of life and increase the independence of boys, girls and teenagers.

ALUNA Protected Workshops
Building a Project of Life

Every person projects a future in which we reach goals through our own productivity. Disabled young people and their families are no exception to this rule; therefore, when a disabled youngster comes of age and has learned mathematical, reading and writing concepts according to their own capacity... a challenge is created which connects us immediately with his life project.

In response, the ALUNA Training Center constructs positive environments to foster the acquisition and development of needed capabilities to perform effective and efficient occupational tasks through the following workshops: vegetable gardening, baking, candle-making, textile and creativity, art, music, theater and entertainment through everyday life activities.

These workshops function as a protected world in which 25 adults may focus on their individual tasks, interests and possibilities, learning to execute varying productive activities within a friendly and mutual collaborative environment. The fundamental importance of the protective workshops resides in offering disabled persons the opportunity to value themselves and their capacity to create, construct and serve, as they are trained in the production of goods and other learning based tasks.

DLA - ALUNA Programs

Take a bus by yourself... shop at a mall... pay a utility bill... easy, or not? The Daily Life activities (DLA) program focuses on building one’s capacity for self-management and become an independent person in the realization of different activities. By developing the ability to understand the social behavior of others, community members may adequately judge how to behave in social situations.

This is why ALUNA adults learn to be more independent, doing activities such as: taking the bus alone, walking from the mall to the school and then home, purchasing products in stores and in supermarkets, paying utility bills, depositing money in banks, cashing checks and knowing the tourist sites of the city as well as being able to welcome visitors to their homes and serve them according to socially established customs.

Before taking fieldtrips with our adults an orientation process and basic preparation in social skills management, the use of money, knowledge of principal transportation routes, and learning of names of supermarkets and various places of interest which they will visit during the program, is needed. It is important to highlight that through this interactive process the students also learn problem solving skills and how best to respond to unforeseen situations that might happen on the street, such as delays in public transportation service, route changes, responses to unfriendly people who fail to understand persons with disabilities or what it means to have limitations.