Our Services

Every child comes with their own unique experiences, conditions and individual needs. Getting to know your child and your family is very important to us to establish the most effective way to provide support. This will involve a 75-90 min consultation to complete a thorough assessment where we will explore their diagnosis, expected treatment course and previous experiences. We will also gain further information about your child’s current presentation and the impact that their medical condition is having on their lives and the lives of the family. We will complete a Behaviour Support Profile that looks at the individual likes, dislikes, strengths and challenges of your child and whether there are any particular environmental and sensory triggers that make healthcare encounters more difficult.  We will also establish goals to work towards during our therapeutic sessions.

Often our brains come up with the worst possible outcomes! Sibling support sessions are aimed at providing developmentally appropriate explanations and opportunities to address misconceptions. Through play, we can gain a better understanding of how your child is processing the experience of having a sibling in healthcare. We can help create individualised social stories to give them a language to use around their experience.

Sometimes we just need to get together as a family and reconnect! Child Life Therapists can help facilitate family sessions which are designed at learning how to ‘play together’ again. It is an excellent opportunity for families to spend time and be present in a world where there are so many distractions and pressures. It is amazing to see the joy on children’s faces when their families are brought into ‘their world’, promoting a deep sense of safety and reassurance.

After the initial consultation, we can offer one-on-one therapeutic sessions with your child. How this looks will depend on your child’s individual needs. Depending on the goals we have established in your initial consultation, it may look like:

• Non- directive therapeutic play to establish control, gaining enhanced mastery over their experiences and improved self-efficacy

• Non-directed medical play to support familiarisation and normalisation of healthcare encounters

• Specific medical preparation with developmentally appropriate explanations and practice

• Skill building – enhancing communication, finding ‘their voice’, creating their coping ‘tool kit’, emotional regulation activities

Having an infant with any new diagnosis can be incredibly difficult. Your role as parent may feel like it has been diminished with others taking care of your baby and the constant fear for the future. You may be experiencing feelings of loss for what you imagined parenthood to be. There are many things in the healthcare journey that you have no control over, but there are still lots of things you do. A Child Life Therapist can sit with you and discuss the important ways you can still offer developmental engagement even when your child is in hospital. Ways you can promote connection and provide positive sensory experiences for your little one. And if you just want to have a big cry and let it out, that’s ok too!

Child Life Therapists can also work with you and your child in creating and accessing a range of resources that will help with their understanding and processing of their hospital experience. This could include Board Maker visual schedules, First and Then charts, personalised social stories and sticker charts. We will work with you and your child to work out the most appropriate resource to promote choice and control and a deeper understanding of their healthcare experiences.