New program targets special needs kids

GEARING UP-Founders of the nonprofit Center for the Whole Child display some of the fun gear to be used in their new program for special needs children and their families. Front row from left, Stacy Wasserman and Mindy Newhouse. Back row, Bette Alkazian, Brooke Hampton and Nora Daley. Five local women want to help families with special needs children bond and share the same close relationships that other parents and children do.

"It's much harder for a parent and a special needs child to connect in that way," said Mindy Newhouse, a licensed and certified speech language pathologist in private practice in Thousand Oaks.

Newhouse, a Newbury Park resident, is president of the Center for the Whole Child, a new nonprofit program that helps special needs children form meaningful relationships with their parents and siblings and achieve optimum levels of physical, communicative, emotional and social functioning.

Working on the program with Newhouse are Bette Alkazian of Westlake Village, a licensed marriage and family therapist and parent/family coach, and Brooke Hampton of Newbury Park, a licensed physical therapist who has a psychology degree and specializes in sensory integration and autism spectrum disorder. Also, Stacy Wasserman of Oak Park, a preschool teacher who has developed curricula for infant and toddler programs and holds a master's degree in nonprofit business management and administration, and Nora Daley of Sherman Oaks, a consultant and coach for special needs families who specializes in early intervention, school readiness and advocacy.

About 70 percent of parents with special needs children eventually divorce, a statistic that could be lowered if parents had the right tools and support, according to Alkazian.

"All parents need support, but add the stresses and strains of a child with special needs and that need is even greater," Alkazian said.

The 26-week program includes weekly family training sessions, sibling support, and social skills and "mom and me" activities. Women from the Whole Child center learn about the family's environment and daily life in order to offer the best therapies for each family.

"Most (treatment) models work in a clinic and miss an important piece," Hampton said. "We want to see the home environment because people are different in different environments."

"We don't have one recipe," Newhouse said. "We have to figure out how to work with their dynamics to help empower them."

The Center for the Whole Child is based on a national model developed by two renowned child development experts, Drs. Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder, founders of the Maryland-based DIR/Floortime program.

The program follows the child's lead, rather than giving the child a task as traditional therapies have done.

The method encourages communication, to create relationships between parents and children through play and fun, said Hampton, who had difficulty connecting with her 8yearold autistic son until she began the program.

The method is geared toward all disorders affecting relating and communicating including Down syndrome, autism, severe ADHD, Fragile X, XXYY syndrome, sensory processing, attachment, anxiety and bipolar disorders, and some physical and developmental disorders.

Early intervention is beneficial. Tthe primary targets are children 18 months to 8 years old, but the approach can be used at any age.

"Children can't grow and develop if there is no relationship there," Daley said. "We're looking for that gleam in the eye. When children don't have that it's hard to imagine learning going on because the child isn't really there."

A child may learn skills like walking and early recognition of colors and numbers, but may not be able to have meaningful conversations, Newhouse said.

The program has already been recognized with a $3,000 grant from the Business and Professional Optimist Club of the Conejo Val

ley. The money is being used to purchase equipment for assessments and parent training.

"As the parent of a special needs child, I've been through this hell, this mass confusion," said Fred Orsinger, an Optimist Club member. "This program is down to earth and practical at the same time. It makes sense."

The women are searching for other funding sources, in the meantime using their own bank accounts to support the program, with help from family and friends and a board of directors that includes a pediatrician, educators, parents of special needs children and therapists.

The women hope to have a location for the center in three to five years with a yearround program including summer camp; training for teachers in how to work with disabled students; and help for parents of adults with special needs who did not receive early intervention.

The center is hosting an open house from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Tues., Nov. 28 at the Thousand Oaks Library, 1401 E. Janss Road. Visit www.centerforthewholechild.org for information.