Project Impower (I am Power)
Project Impower (I am Power)
By Maria Smith, M.A., Director of Physical Therapy
It’s amazing what happens when amazing people collaborate!
For the past year, the physical therapists at P.G. Chambers School had the privilege to collaborate with interns from Stevens Institute of Technology, under the leadership of Dr. Donald Lombardi, to modify and adapt used toy ride-on cars for our young students with disabilities. The adapted cars allow our students to move independently. Taking the lead from the “Go Baby Go” program founded by Dr. Cole Galloway at the University of Delaware, after working with him at the 33rd international Seating Symposium in Nashville in March 2017, we began our “Project Impower” (I am Power).
Together with our Stevens interns, we adapted four cars that many of our early childhood students have had the opportunity to trial. It is exciting to share in the children’s joy as they experience, some of them for the first time, independent mobility. Lots of grins!!!
We are looking forward to our continued collaboration with Stevens. Recently, Stevens generously donated three brand new ride-on toys with all of the electronic modifications needed to adapt them for our students. We are hard at work getting them up and running soon!
How generous of Stevens institute! we all remember learning how to drive and taking off down the road…in this case, it will be down the hallway or the sidewalk and will seem just as thrilling to our students.