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Cooee provides therapy services to children and young adults with developmental disorders, delays, or difficulties, generally from 15 months up to 16 years 11 months.  We typically do not accept referrals for new clients aged 17 years or older.

We help all children aged up to 16 years who have developmental delays or difficulties.

We can’t provide therapy for:

• acquired brain injuries (e.g. childhood stroke)
• vocational or work-related goals
• goals around community independence or skill maintenance – as these are best worked on in community settings.
• infants under 12 months,
• clients needing complex AAC device prescription,
• infant feeding support,
• dysphagia (swallowing disorders) support,
• home modifications

Children with difficulties with regulation

For most children, especially those who are still young, having the parent in the session is sufficient to support regulation & manage behaviours when therapy is challenging.

Some children have difficulties with regulation, that can go beyond parent’s ability to support in therapy, including:

• Behaviours of concern that may cause harm to themselves, other children or the Cooee team
• Safety concerns, e.g. absconding/running out of the clinic
• Documented Positive Behaviour Support Plans (BSP)

In these cases, during your Client Journey Planning session the clinician will conduct a risk assessment with you, and form a plan around how to keep your child & other people safe while they attend therapy.

Your therapist will also recommend the best service delivery model for your child, which may include, for example, having SP & OT joint sessions, or including an AHA in your session if that is clinically appropriate.

In rare cases where children’s behaviours present an unmanageable risk, you may be referred to another clinic (e.g. mobile therapist) to provide home based services if that is deemed to be the safest option.

If after this risk assessment, we all agree that Cooee is not the right support for your child, we will not charge you for your Client Journey Planning Session.

Our Client Journey Planning session is the first step in getting started with therapy at Cooee.

We understand that:

• All children are unique & require their own assessment and therapy journey
• Some children have lots of background information to share with us, as well as key people or environments in their lives that are an important part of the therapy journey.  We dedicate time to understand this information to make sure we have the whole picture.
• Families value having time to speak with their therapists about their concerns without their children present

Your first appointment will create a confidential space for you to discuss your concerns about your child’s development, and receive an individualised plan for assessment and therapy, based on the information you provide.

In your Client Journey Planning Session you can expect the therapist to focus on:

• Gathering referral information & family’s outcome for therapy
• Take a comprehensive case history & read any existing reports
• Clinical Hypothesis – understand what area of development needs assessment
• Explain our assessment recommendation – which will be customised based on a) your concerns, b) any existing assessment data you have and c) our Clinical Assessment Protocols
• Understanding family background & culture
• Connecting with key stakeholders
• Understanding meaningful environments – where the child lives, plays, learns and communicates
• Exploring participation in those environments

At the end of this session your therapist will:

• Provide a written recommendation for the assessment phase customised for your child
• Provide education and information about the area of development involved

This session is booked for up to one hour, and can be shortened if the time is not required.  All time is billed at the hourly rate.

All clients starting with a therapy at Cooee require this session, to understand your unique needs and provide clear recommendations for the assessment and/or therapy cycles.

We believe that it is important for parents and carers to have a space to share their concerns, and ask questions without their child present.

This allows them to:

• share their concerns openly, without their child hearing their parent or carer speak about their difficulties
• listen to the Speech Pathologist or Occupational Therapist without distraction

These sessions can be conducted in person, or on telehealth using our secure platform, Cliniko.

Parents or carers who do need to bring their child to this session are welcome to, and the therapist will adapt the conversation to ensure the information is gathered sensitively.

Please understand if you do bring the child to this session, the session still remains focused on information gathering & providing, and will not be a direct assessment of the child.

We aim to support families to move through our 3 structured phases as quickly as possible, so we can start therapy (if needed) to help you achieve your goals.

Our Traffic Lights (above) give an indication of availability for each phase.  We often have availability for Client Journey Planning Sessions & the Assessment Phases become available more frequently than specific regular times.

Booking a Client Journey Planning session & completing a subsequent Assessment phase is the fastest way to get into an ongoing therapy time.  We don’t recommend waiting for your preferred therapy timeslot before starting the Client Journey Planning or Assessment Phases, as this will significantly increase the wait time.

Families can of course let us know their preferred times for therapy in the Client Journey Planning session, or by calling us on 3265 4495, to see how likely a specific spot may be to come up in the future.

We aim to support families to move through our 3 structured phases as quickly as possible, so we can start therapy (if needed) to help you achieve your goals.

Our Traffic Lights (above) give an indication of availability for each phase.  We often have availability for Client Journey Planning Sessions & the Assessment Phases become available more frequently than specific regular times.

Booking a Client Journey Planning session & completing a subsequent Assessment phase is the fastest way to get into an ongoing therapy time.  We don’t recommend waiting for your preferred therapy timeslot before starting the Client Journey Planning or Assessment Phases, as this will significantly increase the wait time.

Families can of course let us know their preferred times for therapy in the Client Journey Planning session, or by calling us on 3265 4495, to see how likely a specific spot may be to come up in the future.

Each Speech Pathologist or Occupational Therapist that you see may have a different process for assessment.   Having an existing report is valuable information, and we don’t want to duplicate assessment at any point.

At Cooee, we have comprehensive Clinical Assessment Protocols that each therapist follows, to ensure the clinical data we gather is based on best evidence available.

If you have an existing report, please bring this to the Client Journey Planning session.  The therapist will compare the assessment already completed with our Clinical Assessment Protocol, and customise the assessment phase they recommend based on that information.

That might mean:

• we don’t need to do any assessment – we can simply set goals with you based on this information, and move into the first cycle of therapy
• we need to recommend some assessment – to fill the gaps between the existing data & our Clinical Assessment Protocols
• we need to recommend a full assessment – if your area of concern is different to the existing data, or the assessment that has been completed is quite different to what we usually recommend

The therapist will show you our Clinical Assessment Protocols, and explain why they are important in your Client Journey Planning Session.

We definitely try to help families find times that are convenient and easy for them to attend!

Some families want to:

• book Speech & OT sessions back to back
• book multiple children in back to back times
• find alternating weeks for different therapies or children

The best way to help this kind of booking is for families to call us, and let us know what they need.

Our goal review process is specifically designed to ensure that:

• The goals we are working on in therapy are clear, and developed collaboratively with families
• We have a structured, regular review to check that therapy is making a difference
• We are documenting the therapy process, providing evidence for families of the goals, outcomes & results
• We don’t continue to provide therapy in cases where it isn’t working (i.e. if families need a break, children are too unwell for therapy, or therapy isn’t achieving outcomes)

We believe this process is transparent, ethical and allows us to provide best therapy for the child.

If you have an enquiry about therapy for another person, this might be a family member, or someone you are working with.  We can absolutely give you information about our service, availability, and process if you have specific questions.

We do require parents or legal guardians to enquire & facilitate the therapy process.

We can help families who are multilingual, by providing Easy English information, or interpreting services.  We value working with diverse families, and supporting them to access therapy.

We support kids to reach their goals by moving through 3 phases

The image below shows what is involved in each phase.  This structure helps Cooee ensure that we:

• Make clear recommendations based on comprehensive information
• Conduct evidence based assessment processes and help families understand their child’s diagnoses or area of difficulty, the impacts, and the long term plan
• Provide therapy in structured cycles so there is a chance to evaluate what’s working, what can change and celebrate achievements as we move through therapy.

We explain this in more detail on our Cooee Journey page, including expectations & how our wait list works.

Cooee provides in-clinic services only.  We have a clinic space that is set up & fully resourced to provide Speech Pathology & Occupational Therapy services.  We encourage families to join in our sessions in a hands-on way.

We don’t provide regular therapy at homes, schools, or education centres (e.g. kindy).

Where clinically necessary, we do conduct one-off observations, or visits to either daycare, kindy or schools, to help with either a) the assessment process or b) supporting key stakeholders.

We do regularly conduct meetings with community partners involved with families (e.g. kindy teachers, support coordinators, learning support team members), and we generally encourage these to be conducted via telehealth, however where needed our therapists can travel offsite for these meetings.