Minister of Health and Human Services Hon. Porsha Stubbs-Smith is currently in Lake Placid, New York, where she’s attending the four-day Can/Am Expertise Exchange 2014, being hosted by the One World Foundation under the theme, “Autism: A New Frontier or a New Focus.”
The One World Foundation is an International non-profit charitable corporation made up of volunteers from America and Canada, sharing a common dedication to better the lives for people with developmental disabilities on-site around the world. Services provided by the 1 World Foundation focus on four primary areas:- technical assistance, training, donations and clinical services.
The objective of the meeting is to provide the Minister and other government officials with an increased awareness of developing a more comprehensive and structured approach to Special Needs programmes. Additionally, focus will be on nutrition and autism; ABA (applied behavioural analysis) based programming for children and young adults; autism movement therapy; and traditional martial arts (for persons with special needs).
One of the objectives of this official visit is to review programmes and visit facilities that provide similar services to individuals with Special Needs. It is anticipated that this visit will assist the Ministry of Health and Human Services in terms of utilising best practices.
Overall, the focus of the One World Foundation programmes is to:-
· Continue to strengthen expertise exchanges and individual mentoring
· Encourage and promote international research and best practices
· Support humanitarian efforts to promote international understanding of developmental disabilities through exchanges of professional and material resources
Minister Stubbs -Smith is accompanied by Permanent Secretary for Health and Human Services, Mrs. Desiree Lewis; Director of Special Needs, Ms. Betty-Ann Been and Head of Secretariat, Ms. Renessa Williams. The delegation left the TCI on May 27 and will return to the country on June 3rd 2014.
