June 2021
We also hope for our next monthly update we can have a different opening line!
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July School Holiday Intensive
We would like to remind all families that during the school holidays, we will be running intensive block and therefore there will be a two-week break from regular weekly sessions. If you have any concerns in regards to this, please do not hesitate to let us know.
OUR NEW HOME!
We are SO excited to announce that Little Bodies Therapy officially has a permanent home in Perth!
Our long-term plan for Little Bodies Therapy has been to transition to a clinic location and we hope we have adequately expressed this to all families upon commencing therapy with Little Bodies and throughout our journey so far.
Although we have loved being greeted back to Perth with open arms, both into your homes or your children's schools, we often feel quite limited in the therapy we are able to offer due to a lack of equipment and resources. In order to deliver the quality of therapy we wish to provide to your children, we will be making a slow transition to primarily clinic-based services.
We will still be utilising our gym space in Booragoon on Wednesdays for our South of the River clients. If you are wishing to transition to the Balcatta clinic, please have these discussions with Ash.
Clinic address
Unit 3 / 231 Balcatta Road, Balcatta WA
Facilities and What's Around
There is plenty of parking availability with two disability bays in front of the unit, four designated parking bays for Little Bodies Therapy Clients, and an abundance of visitor parking. The rear of the property also has a secure parking area for staff parking which will allow a safe and quiet location to practice outside walking or bike riding.
The clinic space does have a kitchen with access to a large fridge and microwave for meal preparation. There is also a seating area for parents to have a coffee and chat together. There is also a large accessible toilet, with shower and changing facilities if required.
If you're interested in other alternatives, in the same complex, there is a lunch bar if you feel like a coffee or sausage roll, while opposite the clinic, across Balcatta Road, there is Urban Kitchen café which has healthy options too.
Benefits of Clinic Appointments
Why in clinic and why the move? Well there multiple reasons! The first reason is for your children. In clinic we have access to some snazzy and amazing equipment which is either unable to be transported or is just too hard to have in a car all at once. Our time is used more productively providing therapy and funding spent on travel is reduced. Moving into a clinic also means we can open up more sessions to children who are on the waitlist or currently waiting for additional appointments. We will be able to run back-to-back appointments, rather than spending time traveling as well as the ability to run more regular intensive therapy blocks, not just in the school holidays.
What's the snazzy equipment you ask? We won’t bore you with a list! We will be sure to have plenty of photos available of our play space and a video tour very soon. We do welcome families to come and visit whenever they’d like to check out the space. In the meantime, some of the equipment we have accessible in clinic includes:
- Universal Exercise Unit (UEU or Spider Cage)
- Treadmill
- Full sets of CME equipment - boxes, boxes and more boxes!
- Varied assistive technology options to trial including walkers and standing frames
- Lots of fun foam obstacles, climbing frames, floor ladders, parallel bars (on their way), large balance beams and many more.
We also feel it is the right fit to support our therapists. In order to best support your child and family, we feel that adequately supporting our therapists is the key to this. Being in a clinic environment is great for our therapists to continue learning from each other and bouncing ideas of one another. A collaborative approach includes multiple therapists from the same discipline and therefore it truly does give your child the best therapy. Although your child may not directly work with a specific OT or Physio, a simple eyeball and suggestion from a different set of eyes can really assist in the best outcomes for your child. We have a varied range of experience in our team and everyone is as equally as passionate about teaching and sharing ideas as they are in delivering quality therapy. A fun, loving team environment is what we want for both our staff and families! We hope by creating this environment for our staff, our therapy team will remain consistent which is in the best interest for your child.
What does this mean for Term 3 appointments?
We wish to make this transition as smooth as possible for families who will be continuing on with Little Bodies Therapy at the Balcatta clinic. Firstly, if you do wish to transition to clinic appointments, please let us know by email at sayhi@littlebodiestherapy.com.au. We will give priority to the children currently in that appointment time and then will make changes as per preferences.
We understand that clinic appointments are not suitable for everyone, whether it be due to care arrangements, logistics or appropriateness for your child's current therapy goals. We are happy to have these discussions and are happy to offer home and school visits for the first four weeks of this transition. The times of these sessions may require adjustment to accomodate for travel.
Will we still offer home and school visits?
As mentioned, our ongoing services will primarily be delivered in clinic however this does not mean offer home or school visits will not be offered. One-off home and school visits can be organised with some examples below of when this may be applicable.
- Home visits: Pre or post surgically, upon delivery or for adjustment of equipment, development of manual handling plans for use within the home, training of carers.
- School visits: To create exercise programs for use in school, development of manual handling plans, equipment adjustments or delivery, teacher meetings, training of teachers and education assistants.
- Community visits: To assist with development of sporting programs with community coaches or equipment trials where appropriate.
As we have learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic, Telehealth is also a great resource and with improved technology specifically designed for Telehealth, some of these appointments can also be attended by therapists via video-conference. This allows your child's funding that would be used for travel to attend meetings to be used for their therapy instead!
The Little Bodies Therapy family is growing!
It has been a big month for Little Bodies Therapy as Kate and Ash have been busy interviewing for a physiotherapist to join our team. We are very excited to announce the we have a new team member and would like to introduce you to our fabulous physiotherapist, Kelly!
Kelly will be officially starting with Little Bodies Therapy on the 16th July however you may see her floating around the clinic helping out Ash in Kate's absence during the school holiday intensives.
If you would like to read more about Kelly's experience, so you can get to know her a little better and her experience prior to joining the Little Bodies Therapy team, you can do so here!
