Outreach Distribution

Our organization serves individuals from throughout the state of NJ and eastern Pennsylvania and surrounding areas including into NYC and Philadelphia.  In fact, we will support anyone in need who contacts us and needs resources.  We will always be happy to direct people to more local support groups when appropriate yet can certainly offer parent to parent support and shared experiences to others.   For larger events (such as our annual World Down Syndrome Day Celebration) we have had 300 folks from throughout the region.  As far as regular participation in extracurricular and social events, the majority of participants are from the Central NJ area including Mercer County, Hunterdon County, Somerset County, Burlington County, Middlesex County as well as Bucks County, PA.  Our site location was determined based on its centrality to the geographic distribution of our typical outreach region.  We also chose a site accessible to public transportation and central to NJ. 

Enrichment and Academic Support and Job Skills Training

Our enrichment center,  Club DREAMS, offer a regular schedule of free programs for individuals with Down syndrome and welcomes other with special needs through joining our DREAM team.   Programs include: education, extracurriculars, life skills, job skills, socials, and support sessions (for siblings, parents or whole family).  See our calendar for a full schedule of events.   

Medical Outreach programming

Our organization believes it is of critical importance to ensure future families have the best possible experience when receiving the diagnosis.  Our hope is for it to be provided according to best practices, in a sensitive, supportive, unbiased manner with accurate and realistic information about having a child with Down syndrome.  Most importantly we strive to make certain that families will receive the most important piece of information – a referral to a support group.  We provide continuing medical education to Obstetric and gynecology Departments, Maternal and Fetal Medicine providers and geneticists to  improve awareness of our organization, our support services, and our first call program.  We also train providers on the Best Practices for Delivering a Diagnosis.   DSACNJ has also developed curricular material and offered programs on both delivering  medical care to children and adults with Down syndrome and guidelines for care.   We intend to continue our medical outreach efforts and continue to reach out to new providers and hospitals to bring forth our CME programs, “Delivering the Down Syndrome Diagnosis Better” and “The Care of the Child and Adult with Down Syndrome”

Community Outreach

Our organization will break down barriers for people with Down syndrome by continuing to develop relationships with local business and the community at large.  We do educational programs at local school districts to explain to peers about Down syndrome with the belief that knowledge leads to understanding which in turn leads to acceptance.   Increased recognition of our organization and services by having a physical location, Club DREAMS, and regular activities that encourage collaborative and integrative involvement of job coaches, volunteers, study buddies and extracurricular participants will help improve visibility. Through our programs in life skills, job skills and job coaching we will work to improve employability of people with Down Syndrome.  Ultimately, we believe that by facilitating increased interactions  with  individuals with Down syndrome, the community members and peers will be more aware of the capabilities of people with Down syndrome when given support and guidance.