Welcome to Families and Teachers
Explore the ways our Team of Occupational Therapists and healthcare partners can support your family and your child.
Referrals from Mums, Dads, Teachers and carers are encouraged. You are the person who knows your child best and if your gut instinct tells you that we should chat...let's chat. No commitment to do therapy, just a quick chat on the phone to find out if our practical strategies may help make daily life easier for your family and your child.
How can we help you?
Do you know your child's development has been delayed?
Do you think your child may have a learning difficulty?
Do you worry your child is not coping with daily expectations at home or school?
Are you stuck for practical strategies or an explanation for your child's behaviour or lack of skills?
... then let's have a "Quick Chat" and explore your personal story; privately on a phone call, which is 100% free.
What is Occupational Therapy for children?
Occupational Therapy is the applied science of helping people achieve their goals in daily activities. Our role as Occupational Therapists is to help people of all ages and stages in life build skills and abilities; with the support required, using tools, and working in partnership. Occupational Therapy for families and children explores challenges related to motor coordination, sensory processing, learning potential, social skills, emotional development, and relationships within the family.
The use of play as a foundation for all assessments and therapy for children is an important part of our "framework for practice" and allow children to feel safe when presented with situations which extend their comfort zone. In our experience, children with anxiety, trauma backgrounds, developmental delays, and behavioural issues respond well to a play-based approach to therapy.
To learn more about the OT models and theories used at Early Links...Read More.
Which interventions are offered?
The team members at Early Links have unique interests and strengths in learning which allows our team to provide a wide variety of interventions and strategies to support your family and child to achieve. We also consider the personality and life experiences of our Occupational Therapists when matching your family and child with a Team Member throughout your journey with us.
Overall, we use an "Affective-Neuro-Developmental" framework to approach your Achievement Plan or Performance Program. What this looks like for you, is that we aim to give you practical strategies which support your difficulties/challenges while we build the abilities required to achieve your goals. Sometimes there are limitation to how much we can change the underlying abilities within the brain/body, and when we reach that point, our program becomes more about discussing which supports will boost your coping strategies long-term.
What can I expect from Therapy?
First, our "Quick Chat" is your opportunity to speak with our clinical team leader who will actively listen to your story, and privately ask you questions about your situation, what are the main challenges, and consider your expectations.
Then, if you choose to book an initial appointment, we will send you a Welcome Pack and start preparing to meet your child.
In the initial appointment, the Occupational Therapist will get to know your child's personality, explore their strengths, discover their difficulties through assessment and observation, and most importantly discuss AND demonstrate some practical strategies you can implement at home which will make daily life easier - sometimes this will be exercises aimed to fill-in the underlying ability gaps, or specific coping strategies which will reduce the frequency, intensity, or duration of challenging behaviours.
The follow-up includes; a summary letter, any discussed correspondence to other people in your child's support network or healthcare team, and an open communication with your OT for any questions or comments you have.
Ongoing sessions take many different formats depending on your situation, your child's needs, and best clinical practice guidelines for the difficulties/diagnosis your child has. Your Occupational Therapist will these options either at the end of the initial appointment or the first follow-up session. These formats may include one or more of the following options -
FREQUENCY - Weekly, fortnightly, monthly, 6-weekly, or as skills emerge
LOCATION - Home, clinic, school, community
DURATION -40-45mins (weekly school session), 50-60mins (standard session), 75mins (review session)
Early Links has developed the S-PaCe Goal Setting Method, and presented the first version of this method at the National OT Australia Conference in Melbourne in 2015. Since then, it has evolved to act as a template for discussing achievement goals and recording current performance. The S-PaCe Goal Setting Method is explained in geater detail here.
Meet our Team Members
Learn more about their past experiences, additional training and strengths...Read More.
