As an OT, we will start by asking you what’s most meaningful to you right now? An Occupational Therapist can help you to do what you need to do, want to do, or have to do! For a child with a disability they may need to eat, get dressed, use the toilet and have a shower, want to make friends or go to the beach or have to learn to take turns, cope with noisy shopping centres or attend school.  

Occupational therapists work in a variety of settings - homes, schools, child care settings, community clinics or over tele therapy technology such as Zoom. 

At Kids & Co.Lab, we place a special emphasis on working with the key caregivers to help kids achieve their goals. We often will suggest sessions with just the parent, to help you learn to implement therapy strategies into your daily routines.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is an Australia initiative to support people with a disability to live ordinary lives within their communities. Once you get a ‘Plan’, you will need to find people to help you achieve the goals on your plan. These might be Allied Health (OT, Speech Therapy, Physiotherapy, Psychology etc.) or Support Workers and Community Access activities. Occupational Therapy supports are funded from your “Improved Daily Living” budget from “Capacity Building supports”. At Kids & Co.Lab we understand that NDIS plans and processes can be very confusing, and while we don’t always know all the answers, we are happy to meet with you over the phone or tele therapy to review your plan and help you work out what supports may help you.

Through years of experience, we have seen time and time again that the children who reach their goals, have supportive caregivers, implementing strategies consistently across environments. One hour of therapy once a week of fortnight in isolation will not get results. We need to work collaboratively with as many key people as possible, to ensure that therapy is working within the home and community, that your child is generalising skills across settings and that we are working on what is most important for you. 

Both our Occupational Therapists, Kate McMahon & Kacey Watson, are experienced Assistive Technology Assessors for children with a range of disabilities. They are able to support you with advice, prescription and fitting of a range of aids and equipment, from smaller daily items like keyboards, adaptive cutlery and wobble cushions, right through to wheelchair mounting systems, mobile shower commodes, hoists, hi-lo electric beds, wheelchairs, strollers, disability carseats and beach buggies and much more. We can also assist with minor home modifications such as ramps and rails.

Kids + Co.Lab offer both clinic and mobile children’s Occupational Therapy across the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. We have rooms in clinic at Brightwater Paediatrics in Mountain Creek and Grow Play Create in Sippy Downs however we also offer mobile services. That means, we travel to your house, school, kindergarten, respite facility, pool, park, library, community centre, grandparent’s house - basically wherever you are carrying out your goals.

There is mounting evidence that use of real-life experiences enable children to learn new activities and develop skills that optimize their participation and self-determination. These interventions are: goal-oriented, family-centered, collaborative, strengths-based, ecological, and self-determined. A distinguishing feature of this style of intervention is that the therapist’s primary role is to support the child and family to identify challenges to participation and solutions to challenges. The therapist is a consultant, collaborating with the child, family, and community providers to share information, educate, and instruct in ways that build child, family, and community capacity.

We therefore look to stay in line with this evidence, and bring the therapy to you. However, until someone develops an affordable time travelling machine, we are unfortunately limited in where we can travel. On our map, we have 2 ‘zones’, green and yellow.

If you live in the green zone, we are able to provide regular face to face therapy in your environment.

If you live in the yellow zone, we provide consultative services face to face, and utilise tele therapy for the majority of ongoing intervention. Consultative services may include home visits to measure for equipment needs and complete equipment trials, functional assessments, carer training sessions, mealtime or daily living assessments, and more!

Families can privately fund services, and may be eligible for other rebates through Private Health and Medicare Plans. Some local charities will also cover costs for a small number of disadvantaged families. Find out more at our “funding” page.