Therapy Circles Australia is committed to ensuring that specialised support and services are provided to infants and young children with disability and/or developmental delay and their families to promote development, well-being, and community participation.
Our Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) Practitioners recognise that as parents and carers, you are
central in supporting your child’s development. Our ECI practitioners aim to:
Each child will receive access to supports that promotes and respects their legal and human rights. It is Therapy Circles Australia’s responsibility to assist families to understand their child’s rights and feel confident to exercise these rights. The child and their family must feel empowered to make choices and decisions that optimise health, wellbeing, capacity, and independence.
It is Therapy Circles Australia’s objective to provide early interventions to children that is family-focused and strength enhancing. Family centred interventions includes staff and family members working alongside each other to learn how to support the child appropriately; Strength enhancing interventions include acknowledgement of the family’s current expertise and knowledge, building upon these identified strengths to provide optimal care.
Therapy Circles Australia will provide therapy in supportive learning environments whereby the child feels comfortable and well-supported. These learning environments will be highly structured, well-organised, regular, and predictable.
Learning activities will be culturally responsive and inclusive, using natural learning environments such as the family home & surrounds, community areas, playgroups, early learning centres and schools.
It is Therapy Circles Australia’s aim to design a high-quality plan based on each child’s individual needs. Each plan must include links to their family and networks, focusing on capacity building and the use of evidence informed practices. Information will be gathered from various stakeholders respectfully and responsively.
The Early Childhood Provider Report will provide clear and written information to the family, detailing the services and types of supports the child will receive from Therapy Circles Australia. The Report will be amended to convey the necessary changes in supports that may be required. The Report will be provided to the child’s family and all other persons involved in implementation.
Meeting times may be organised between Therapy Circles Australia and the family, their advocate, and other providers as appropriate. Staff undertaking plan development are required to consider the importance of the family in identifying the child’s goals, and for each goal, list the actions, responsibilities, frequencies, and duration of services to be coordinated on behalf of the child.
Our team, together with the family will negotiate time ranges for services, service fees (as recorded in service agreement), review timeframes and strategies for plan monitoring and evaluation of effectiveness. The child’s family/advocate must sign the plan to acknowledge agreement with it before implementation can commence. All Stakeholders are provided with a copy of the agreed plan.
Therapy Circles Australia’s Collaboration Procedure has been developed to clearly understand the importance of active collaboration between participants, families, communities, and other support providers. Collaboration allows all parties to provide input into the service to ensure supports are relevant, appropriate and in line with the Support Plan & Service Agreement.
Children require many important influences to assist their development and support. Therapy Circles Australia will make initial contact with the family to ensure family consent has been given before contacting other collaborating providers. With consent from the family/advocate, Therapy Circles Australia will collaborate with others when developing a plan to share information to meet the participant’s needs.
The Child & Family’s needs, interests, aspirations may change during the support delivery phase, leading the child to transition or exit from our service. If this situation occurs, Therapy Circles Australia will, with the consent of the participant’s family contact the relevant service provider to arrange sharing of documents relevant to the participant, communicating current supports, practices and needs of the participant.
To manage risks appropriately, Therapy Circles Australia will complete the following:
Capacity Building is how children improve, obtain, and retain the skills and knowledge needed to support their learning and development. Therapy Circles Australia’s objective is to provide high quality practices to participants to develop their capacity. Practitioners design supports related to the child’s functional outcomes after completion of a functional assessment. The assessment is comprehensive and includes information on the child functioning in all developmental domains, as well as areas whereby the child needs more support.
Therapy Circles Australia requires our staff to work with families and their child’s support network so that all parties can build their capacity to assist the child’s functional outcomes.
Using a collaborative approach, Therapy Circles Australia can identify and record feedback and learnings from the family, child and other professionals.
All feedback and learnings are recorded in the participant’s records, and the information is used to monitor, review and adjust the plan to ensure functional outcomes are being met.
Therapy Circles Australia aims to use evidence-informed methods in our everyday practices. Evidence informed practice is the process that compiles the best available research, expert knowledge and current data to provide services proven to achieve positive outcomes for children and their families. Our staff uses evidence based practice when designing plans and programs – and intervention strategies used are based on explicit principles, validated practices, best available research, and relevant laws and regulations.
When designing a participant’s plan, our staff practice evidence-based practice methods to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the health or developmental issue being addressed, how to use evidence to implement effective practices and plan/implement actions that will result in effective short and long-term outcomes.
Therapy Circles Australia provides training/educational opportunities to our staff to ensure access to and consistent use of evidence-based practices. We also undertake annual employee performance management reviews that require employees to self-assess against their position description and key performance indicators to ensure high-quality standard practices are consistently executed.
Children and young people form one of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Therapy Circles Australia must identify, consult, and respond to instances where a child or young person is at risk of significant harm.
The objective of this policy is to ensure Therapy Circles Australia:
It is a legislative requirement that staff engaged in a risk assessed role must have the required WA Government Department of Communities clearance check. Staff must also undergo the NDIS Worker Screening and Working with Children Check process prior to employment. Appropriate clearances ensure that key personnel in risk assessed roles do not pose an unacceptable risk to our NDIS participants safety and wellbeing.
