School Meals for Students with Disabilities: Beyond nutrition

Description

Speaker

Lily Gullion, OTR/L (PhD Student at UNC- Chapel Hill)

Learning Objectives

1. Summarize the USDA recommendations and/or mandates for school meals
2. Identify two examples of school responsibility for safety and inclusion during meals at schools
3. Compare and contrast personal and perceived communication strategies with families, school professionals, and healthcare personnel

Presentation Summary

School meals are more than nutrition. This presentation will explore the various ways that families, health care professionals, and school personnel can collaborate to create safe and inclusive mealtime experiences for students with PFD. Participants will learn about policies and share strategies for receiving support in their communities.

Lily Gullion, OTR/L (PhD Student at UNC- Chapel Hill)

Lily is a pediatric occupational therapist who has experience in outpatient and school settings. She began her OT career with a professional fellowship which included mentorship in NICU and in a hospital-based feeding clinic. She then worked in school feeding as a feeding team lead, assessing and teaching teachers how to safely provide meals to students with disabilities. Curious about school systems and the nuances of state feeding policies, she returned to school to start a PhD in Occupational Science, a current third-year student focusing on the way federal, state, and school-specific policies impact the participation of students with disabilities during meals