CAGAYAN de Oro City Councilor Desiree Dahino, the committee on women and family relations chair, is pushing for the establishment of a child development center for children with special needs.
In her special report before their plenary February 2, Dahino said she discovered during the recent observance of the 30th Autism Consciousness Week that the city government had already allotted in 2019 the construction of said center under the budget of the city social welfare department.
According to her, the center was supposed to be constructed in a lot in barangay Iponan but it has yet to materialize.
Thus, Dahino proposed to calendar a joint meeting with her committee and the committees on health (headed by Councilor Paolo Gaane) and social services (under Councilor Maximo Rodriguez III) so they could revive the project.
Dahino is proposing that the child development center must have a developmental pediatrician on call to diagnose children with autism.
She said that public school-enrolled kids here in the city would have to wait five months for their turn to be diagnosed due to the lack of specialty medical professionals.
Under her proposal, the center must provide individualized intervention plans and regular therapy sessions targeting children from low income families.
She feared that lack of intervention would cause kids to drop out from mainstream public schools, eventually leading to lifelong poverty.
Special needs is Dahino’s expertise since she is a psychometrician by profession.
