When you work with Everyday Independence for early intervention services, your child and family will be supported by a Ballarat based key worker and team of therapists and practitioners that may include speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, behavior support practitioners, and habit coaches.
While each family’s team configuration depends on the child’s developmental needs and therapist availability, you can count on the support of a key worker, and at least one therapist for your early intervention services.
Our early intervention services (early childhood supports) support all children younger than nine years. You’ll be matched with a Ballarat key worker, a degree-qualified teacher with a thorough understanding of childhood development. They’ll take the time to get to know your family, what’s important to you all, and what you want to achieve. They’ll be your primary contact for your services with us.
Your key worker will coordinate services provided by therapists and practitioners on your team who offer specialist consultations and bursts of therapy to your child when needed.
Tailored Support for Your Child and Family
Whether it’s enhancing social skills, making new friends, increasing independence, improving communication or mobility, our early childhood services help improve your child’s and family’s well-being and quality of life. When you choose us for early childhood supports in Ballarat, you can expect that we will:
Look at your child’s needs across all areas, rather than focusing solely on specific aspects of your child’s development
Provide services and support in your home and local community
Suggest ideas and approaches that consider the unique needs of your family to help develop your child’s skills
Help you adapt everyday routines so your child maximises their opportunities to learn new skills
We’re Ready to Get you Started
Your first step to getting started with early childhood supports is to meet with a key worker, in your home. They get to know you, your family and child and other members of your support team to understand the outcomes you all want.
Is your child not yet a NDIS participant? Visit our NDIS page for information on getting your plan funded.
How will the key worker model benefit my child and family?
There are many benefits of the key worker model, including:
families have access to a team of practitioners with different skills and knowledge through one practitioner
reduces the number of practitioners that a child and family need to get to know, making it easier to build a trusting relationship
working with one practitioner who understands the family’s needs and goals enables consistent delivery of services to meet the child’s developmental needs
reduces the stress of juggling appointments and services from multiple practitioners
the needs of the whole family are considered, which better equips them to build on their strengths and make the positive changes needed to support the child’s development needs
This model is widely considered best practice in supporting a child’s developmental needs because it leads to better long-term outcomes for the child and family.
I only need occupational therapy or speech therapy for my child, can a key worker help with this?
As degree-qualified teachers, our key workers use their specialised training in child development and learning to design and implement strategies to support your child’s development. This includes activities to improve their fine motor skills, language development or strategies to help with their sensory processing issues. These strategies can also be used by other members of your child’s team, such as speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists.
Key workers can deliver more than an individual registered occupational therapist, speech pathologist or physiotherapist as they can implement their own strategies and activities as well as those designed by the team of therapists.
Are key workers qualified to deliver therapy if they aren’t an occupational therapist, speech pathologist or physiotherapist?
As degree-qualified teachers, our key workers use their specialised training in child development and learning to design and implement strategies across developmental areas which include social, emotional, physical, cognitiveand language. They do this in a way that engages your family and other important people in your child’s life such as their teacher.
There are some specialised areas that only a speech pathologist, physiotherapist or occupational therapist can assess and provide advice on. The key worker will link in these team members where this support is required.
Matthew’s Journey to Independence
19-year-old Matthew is supported in building his everyday skills with the help of an OT and a habit coach.
