MEA July 2017

80 MEA MARKETS / July 2017 , The Child Early InterventionMedical Center in Dubai (CEIMC) is a highly specialised center, which focuses on all aspects of child development frombirth to 18 years of age. As a winner in the UAE Excellence Awards, in theMost Outstanding in Children’s Healthcare category, we interviewed the firm’s Dr Hibah Shata to learnmore. Early Intervention Services in the UAE Child Early Intervention Medical Center in Dubai (CEIMC) offers developmental and psychological assessments, therapy services, special needs support and a variety of programmes for children who require early intervention in learning or behaviour. Their unique approach, emphasises an individualised service for children and families that incorporates the importance of health and wellness, culture, family, language, community and how they contribute to a child’s overall development. Dr Hibah Shata begins by revealing more about the firm’s services and their client service philosophy plus the challenges and opportunities of being based in the UAE region. “We offer various services such as psychological and social skills services, applied behavioural analysis, speech & language assessment & therapy, occupational therapy, vision rehabilitation, feeding therapy, training and parental training & support. “Our philosophy is to innovate constantly to create a unique experience for our children and their families, while our focus is on providing children with individualised programmes based on their strengths and needs, and foster their inclusion in mainstream schools and the community. We also include the parent in every decision and have them involved in their child’s programme. We support them with necessary training and engage with them through technology and continuous communication. “When we started in 2008, early intervention services did not exist; there was lack of awareness that special children could go in school and there were many kids on long waiting lists for therapy. There was no monitoring of the quality of services rendered to children. There was a big gap in the number of service providers to meet the growing needs of the society. Other challenges included the lack of specialised manpower within the UAE and the high cost of treatment.” Following on from this, Dr Hibah Shata says the firm realised that they would need to: • Raise awareness to the importance of early intervention through media, workshops and conferences; • Provide state of the art service model to set a best practice bench mark for early intervention services; • Introduce applied behavioural analysis services to the region that is best researched methods for treating children with autism and other developmental delays, through building a structured training programme, to develop highly trained therapist to work with the children; • Raising community awareness towards the 1707ME01