Leach earns Matheny School honors

SPARTA — Sparta resident Erin Leach, a physical therapist at the Matheny School in Peapack, has been voted the “Related Service Provider of the Year” by her peers at the school, which provides special education for children from ages three to 21 to resident and day students. Saying she was “surprised when I won this,” Leach acknowledged integrating physical therapy into classroom activities requires creativity. Leach worked in sports medicine and then tried a nursing home setting before moving on to work with children with developmental disabilities - first at Cerebral Palsy of North Jersey’s Horizon High School in Livingston and, since November 2008, at the Matheny Medical and Educational Center, a special hospital and educational facility for children and adults with medically complex developmental disabilities At Matheny, physical therapy provides therapeutic interventions to help students and patients attain their optimal level of function.