Retired
U2NL, CSCNL
A teacher by profession, Susan moved from teaching to acting as the founding chair of a project that started the first non stigmatizing school lunch program in St John`s. The School Lunch Association still exists and now serves 1,100,000 meals in 42 school per year. Susan then became involved in establishing breakfast and snack programs across the province. She became E.D.of Kids Eat Smart and served as National Chair for the Advisory Council for School Nutrition Programs and worked to established best practice standards for child nutrition programs. Kids Eat Smart currently delivers 46.000 breakfast and snack programs in 277 schools throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. Susan was awarded the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2011 for her work in child nutrtion.
Susan did further studies in community development and spent three months at a community-based project in Zimbabwe. However, the birth of her fourth grandchild,born with complex medical needs, presented her with the challenges in caring for such a child .The health services were siloed , and without a diagnosis, her granddaghter could avail of no support. A last hope was that children with complex needs might be a focus in the Health Accord process , As a last resort, she took her concerns to the Office of the Citizens Representative to determine whether the lack of services was a systemic problem.for children In October 2023 the Office of the Citizen`s Representative released their report about the Challenges of Parents and Caregivers of Medically Complex Children. They identified that there was a systemic problem and made 12 recommendations to government .
Amie and Susan met at the releasing of the report and informed by Amie’s research and with input from other parents of children with complex needs, they designed a survey on which they are reporting
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Sunday, October 20, 2024
10:10 AM - 11:40 AM NDT