At the recent meeting with Department of Education officials, we were informed that the department is doing a lot of work around helping Ukrainian children as they arrive in Ireland.
You may already be familiar with the Grace app, it helps children communicate through the use of relative images e.g. food, places, people, colours etc. The owner of the grace app, Lisa Maree Domican, has advised that they will offer the app free (usually €33) for SEN Ukrainian children starting in special schools and special classes. Lisa Maree advised that they can get Apple to create a download code for special classes supporting the new arrivals.
She will also send the manual for free, you can reach out to Lisa by email at lisa@graceapp.com if you have any queries.
This is a very generous and helpful offer as visual references like photos/pictures are international and could be a ready source of communication for these children. We are very grateful to our friends in the Open Schools and Special Classes group for sharing the information with us.
This information has also been made available to the officials in the Department of Education
