Cleft Care at Home

Comprehensive cleft care does not only happen at your local Smile Train partner treatment centre. It is so important for children and caretakers to have access to resources related to their cleft care at home.

Cleft Care at Home
Nine Reasons to Smile

9 Reasons to Smile

This activity book is filled with creative art projects and engaging family games that help people explore their emotions, their relationships, and their world—even while at home. It can be used as a printed booklet or as a guide on a phone to draw and play at home. It is available in many languages—please use, share, and send pictures or videos using it at home at info@smiletrain.org.

Speech Services Books & Games

Dr. Catherine Crowley, a member of Smile Train’s Global Medical Advisory Board and founder of Leaders Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, has developed many resources for speech therapists, parents, and children with cleft palates to use at home to improve speech. Smile Train has supported many of these resources to become colouring books and games across many languages. Instructions and download links included here.

Coloring Books

Smile Train's Speech App

Smile Train has developed a free, interactive application (IOS and Android) to enable children with cleft palates to practice their speech on a phone or tablet. The app involves digital stories and games that target sounds that are usually challenging for children with cleft palates. It also has notes and video tutorials to help caregivers understand what is happening with their child’s speech and how to help them overcome their speech challenges. For more information and instructions on how to download the app, visit the Smile Train speech app.

Telehealth

Where available, Smile Train offers support to partners to provide general counselling, feeding and nutrition guidance and/or speech services through technology such as WhatsApp, Zoom or Facebook (depending on local norms and regulations). This is extremely important for families who cannot travel to receive care due to distance, cost and/or other travel restrictions. Telehealth services offer a way for families to receive tailored information and feel supported, even if they cannot physically visit a cleft team. Please reach out to partners in your region to learn which ones have these services available.

Smile Train Quiz

Make yourself smile by taking this Smile Train Quiz with your family. With a variety of smile- and cleft-related questions, this is a quiz that everyone can participate in! Access the quiz.

Fill in the Smile Train Blanks

Learn about Osawa Oswiti, Smile Train’s one-millionth patient who travelled from his small town to the capital of Tanzania in order to receive his life-changing cleft lip surgery. Afterward, put your memory to the test and complete a Fill in the Blanks worksheet about Osawa's story.