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Who Does Cooee Provide Therapy To?

Cooee Speech Pathology provides therapy services to children and young adults with developmental delays, differences or disabilities.

Our therapy focuses on developmental goals — meaning skills that typically develop over time as children grow and participate more fully at home, school, work and in the community.

Examples of developmental goals may include:

• communication and social skills
• emotional regulation
• independence and self-organisation
• participation in daily activities
• literacy and learning-related skills

As a primarily paediatric clinic, our assessments, resources and therapy approaches are designed for developmental support in a clinic-based setting.

There are some types of goals or services that sit outside our scope or service model, including:

• rehabilitation following acquired brain injury
• primarily employment or vocational-focused goals
• long-term maintenance support where developmental progress is not expected

We do not have a strict age limit for clients starting therapy. We aim to support continuity of care for families and young people as they grow and transition through different life stages.

We also support neurodivergent young adults — including autistic individuals, people with Down syndrome, or intellectual disability — where developmental therapy and clinic-based supports are expected to be meaningful and beneficial.

Our therapy focuses on developmental goals that help children and young people participate more fully at home, school and in the community.

As a primarily paediatric clinic, there are some areas that sit outside our team’s current scope of practice or service model. In some situations, another service may be better suited to support your child or young person’s needs.

This may include:

• acquired brain injuries requiring rehabilitation (e.g. childhood stroke)
• primarily vocational or employment-focused goals
• community access or skill maintenance goals best supported in community settings
• infants under 12 months of age
• complex AAC device prescription
• infant feeding support
• dysphagia (swallowing) support
• home modifications

For some children or young adults who need additional support with emotional regulation, safety or behaviours, we may first complete a collaborative risk assessment during your Client Journey Planning Session. This helps us work together to create a plan that supports your child, your family, other clients and our team members to feel safe and supported during therapy.

In some situations, we may recommend a different therapy model or service (such as a mobile or home-based provider) if we believe this would better support your child’s needs or safety.

You can read our full Access to Services Policy here.

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 45min appointment with a therapist and parent/carer with 15min billed non-face-to-face time, 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.

Do You Provide Therapy at Home, School or in the Community?

Cooee Speech Pathology is primarily a clinic-based service. Our clinic spaces are intentionally designed and fully resourced to support Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy assessment and therapy, and we encourage families to be actively involved in sessions wherever possible.

We do not provide regular home-based therapy services.

We understand that some goals may benefit from support across different environments.

Where clinically appropriate, we may offer:

• kindy or school visits
• community-based sessions within our local area
• one-off observations
• stakeholder meetings with educators or support teams
• support for skill generalisation into everyday environments

These services are considered on a case-by-case basis when they are expected to meaningfully support a child or young person’s goals.

For some clients, a hybrid approach may be recommended — for example, learning a skill in clinic first, then practising or generalising that skill in a real-world setting such as a local café, supermarket or public transport environment.

We also regularly collaborate with families and community partners such as:

• educators and teachers
• support coordinators
• learning support teams
• support workers

Where possible, meetings are usually completed via telehealth to support accessibility and minimise travel costs for families.