Ciranda-An Inclusive Floor Seating Positioning System and Social Enterprise.

One of the first challenges for many children with physical disabilities is to sit independently. A floor seating positioning system enables this milestone, helping a child to maintain eye level with other children, play and learn on the floor, rectify his or her posture, and, therefore, helps to include the child within his or her social spectrum. Ciranda is the first comprehensive floor seat solution in Brazil to attend to those needs. The project collected anthropometric data from 370 children who were unable to sit without support. A sample of 37 families of these children was visited, observed, and interviewed. A project requirement compiled key insights from the field data to support a multidisciplinary team of collaborators to co-design solutions. The project resulted in two floor seating positioning systems to attend to different needs. One is a social enterprise where the children's parents and the community build the seat while the child in need and his or her friends engage in entertainment. The other is a salable seat that helps to raise funds for the social enterprise. The model also unravels other challenges common to assistive technologies, such as access to a device and training for the use and maintenance of the device.

Not Just the Right to a Wheelchair but the Right Wheelchair - Improving Brazilian Wheelchair Service Delivery.

This paper discusses the barriers encountered before and after the implementation of good practice in the delivery of wheelchair provision services in Belo Horizonte city, Brazil. The results demystify some participants' initial idea that using an assessment form might take significantly more time. Major barriers to implementation had regard to the assessment of pressure sores and a lack of wheelchair suppliers.

Assessing Service Delivery Systems for Assitive Technology in Brazil using HEART Study quality indicators.

BACKGROUND: recently in Brazil, there have been investments and improvements in the service delivery system for assistive technology provision. However, there is little documentation of this process, or evidence that users are being involved appropriately. OBJECTIVE: to understand how a ssistive technology service provision currently functions in Belo Horizonte city, Brazil, in order to provide context-specific interventions and recommendations to improve services. METHOD: Qualitative research design, including visits to key institutions and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. Interview questions were divided with two purposes: 1) Exploratory, aiming to understand present service functioning; 2) Evaluative, aiming to assess staff difficulties in applying best existing best practices. RESULTS: Assistive Technology services in Belo Horizonte fall under the 'medical model' definition of service delivery developed by AAATE. It was also found that staff lack training and knowledge support to assess user requirements and involve them during the decision process. Additionally, there is no follow up stage after the device is delivered. CONCLUSIONS: The study clearly defines the service provision function and the staff difficulties at Belo Horizonte city, providing information for further studies.