The Shepherd's Crook Ministries

This 7-year-old girl has multiple special needs and is longing for a permanent family.  She has been staying in the present residential child-care centre since January 2007.  Her placement is stable.  She suffered from congenital brain malformation and severe grade mental retardation since birth.  Not yet developed any speech, she is currently expressing herself more by her facial expression, body gestures (e.g. shaking her head and hands) and making sounds.

She is dependent in self-care.  In eating, she is tube-fed with milk.  She does not undergo any toilet training as she suffers from double incontinence.  She needs entire assistance in cleaning and dressing too.

Despite that her visual and hearing abilities are in doubt, she is currently responding more actively to sounds such as turning her head to the sound source and having some eye contacts occasionally when familiar persons talk to her.  The teachers find her emotionally stable and responsive in class activities.  She makes good friends in her class and likes her teachers and caregivers. In motor development, she has hypertonia with limbs contracture and is wheel-chair bounded.  She is unable to stand and walk.  The physiotherapist has trained her to turn her body from the prone position to her sides in the bed.  Moreover, she learns to give things in her hands.

She was born at 38 weeks’ gestation by caesarean with a birth weight of 2.1 kg. She has a small body build.  She is taking regular medication to control her epilepsy.  She has regular follow-ups in the paediatric (renal and brain clinics), eye and hearing appointments, neurosurgical, stoma therapy and gastrostomy appointments.  She is 13.2 kg in her weight and 94.5 cm in her height.