Children's Feeding Clinic

What is the GSHS Children's Feeding Clinic?

 

The Feeding Clinic at GSHS supports families through stressful or difficult mealtimes with the aims of helping children enjoy food and create happy mealtimes. Based on the principles of the SOS (Sequential-Oral-Sensory) approach to fussy eating, this program aims to increase children’s tolerance of exposure to foods and building on skills for eating.

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GSHS Feeding Clinic can help infants and children with:

• Difficulty transitioning to solids, lumps or finger foods.

• Chewing, swallowing or oral motor problems.

• Ongoing choking, gagging or coughing during meals.

• Fussy, picky or selective eating.

• Feed refusal or distress with feedings.

• Stressful mealtimes.

• Aversion or avoidance of all foods in specific texture of nutrition group.

• Feeding issues secondary to a more complex diagnosis (e.g. Sensory processing disorder, down syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder).

• Other nutrition concerns (e.g. Poor growth, vitamin deficiencies) as a result of limited diet and fussy eating. 

 

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We offer the following feeding services:

 

• An initial assessment appointment with the multidisciplinary team - Occupational Therapist, Speech Pathologist and dietitian. This includes observing your child feeding.

• Support and strategies for families around mealtimes.

• Addressing nutritional concerns as a result of a limited dietary intake.

• Group Program — group-based therapy meal sessions, based on the ‘SOS Approach to Feeding’.  These sessions focus on fun exploration of new foods to increase willingness to try new foods.

• Individual Program — individual therapy meal sessions are offered where the group program is not appropriate.

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​Appointments for the feeding clinic are available on a Wednesday at the Leongatha campus.

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How to access the service:

 

Referrals can be made by service providers (GP, other health professionals, maternal child health nurse, or paediatrician). You can also self-refer by contacting our intake team directly.

 

Referrals can be made via the telephone, email, fax or post as follows:

 

Phone:    5654 2737

Email:     gateway@gshs.com.au

Fax:        5667 5634

Address: Gateway Intake Service, GSHS, Private Bag 13, Leongatha 3953.

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Contact hours: 8.30am – 5:00pm, Monday to Friday (except public holidays).

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Fees:

​There may be a fee for our services as per our fees policy. NDIS participants will be charged as per the pricing guidelines.