Posted on Fri, Nov. 6, 2009
Special services school district provides parents informative seminars
By Amanda Rittenhouse
Staff Writer
Gloucester County Special Services School District will host a seminar focusing on nutrition education for children with special needs as part of a multiple-workshop series this fall.
The sessions, organized by the Gloucester County Special Services Education Foundation, focus on topics and speakers of interest to parents, friends, and educators of children with special needs. All sessions will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Bankbridge Development Center gymnasium located at 550 Salina Road in Sewell.
A nutrition education session for children with special needs will be held Nov. 10 focusing on healthy diet requirements. The free workshop will be led by Garima Jain, a board certified American Alternative Medical Practitioner and doctor of naturopathy and complementary and alternative medicine. Jain works with her patients at Global Naturopath, a naturopathy practice located in Somerset and Princeton.
Jain, who has worked with children with autism, bipolar, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder, pervasive developmental disorder and other developmental disabilities, will focus on dietary planning and the nutrients essential to children with special needs at the session.
Other session topics include behavioral management, privacy for special needs children entering puberty and general information on New Jersey’s Division of Developmental Disabilities.
According to Gloucester County Special Services School District director of admissions Eileen Shute, this is the third year the educational foundation has offered the workshop sessions to the community.
“This initiative supported by our education foundation enables us to reach out to the community. We are hoping that parents and the community come out and find it beneficial for their children,” Shute said.
This is the first time the educational foundation is hosting Jain at a community speaker session. Jain recently wrote a book on nutrition for children with special needs, titled “Healing Autism in the Kitchen,” that will be released in December 2009.
“We are doing as much as we can to support children with special needs and their families. Part of the foundation’s mission is to educate and do outreach within the Gloucester County community,” Shute said.
The educational foundation advertised the sessions to parents in the district and the community by circulating flyers at a local autism walk, sending flyers home to district parents, and by placing information about the sessions on the district’s Web site.
According to Jain, children with autism may face varied nutritional deficiencies such as a need for vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes or probiotics. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, probiotics are dietary supplements that involve the use of microorganisms similar to those found in the human gut.
“I will focus on the impact of nutrition and how a nutritional deficit could contribute and affect a child’s learning, behavior and health,” Jain said.
She encourages parents to focus proactively on nutritional health to prevent deficiencies as their children grow into adults. At the session Jain will focus on the best nutritional choices a parent can make for their child to promote development and overall health.
“You are your child’s best advocate,” she said.
Post a comment
