Hospital Infantil San Rafael

The Colegio de Educación Especial Hospital San Rafael is a semi-private center in the Community of Madrid belonging to the Order of Saint John of God. It offers comprehensive care to students with motor, intellectual, and other associated functional diversity, with a person-centered approach that encompasses pedagogical, therapeutic, and daily living aspects for the individual and their family. The governing body, families, and staff participate in its oversight and management through the School Council.

Its educational offerings include Early Childhood Education (3-6 years), Compulsory Basic Education (6-16/18 years), and Training Workshops (16/18-22 years), stages grouped into eight units contracted with the Educational Administration.

Among its complementary services, it has a school cafeteria, organized in two shifts (Early Childhood Education and EBO, and PTVA), where each student eats accompanied by a person assigned in advance by the Speech Therapy Department, mostly staff from the center, supported by a group of volunteers from the hospital and nursing and physiotherapy schools trained at the beginning of each course. It also provides school transportation using adapted vans for the daily transfer of students between the center and their homes.

The center has a nursing service that performs periodic checks of vital signs and weight, addresses health needs such as medication, aerosols, nasal washes, secretion aspiration, and wound care, works on disease and accident prevention through healthy habits campaigns, attends to the various forms of student feeding (feeding pump and nasogastric tube), and collaborates with families on all matters related to their children's health. Meanwhile, the Educational Technical Assistants Department collaborates with other professionals in developing social skills, autonomy, and personal hygiene, supports educational experiences in the classroom and physiotherapy, performs posture changes according to each student's needs, carries out toilet training programs in coordination with the Psychology Department, maintains student and school material hygiene, assists students during class entry and exit, and maintains daily communication with the dietitian for the cafeteria's operation.