Primary School
Children 5 to 12
The primary years are a critical phase in a child’s development. Our services and supports focus on social and emotional well-being to help children to gain an understanding of their world so they can function comfortably within it. We offer school counselling, in-home and community-based supports that focus on individual needs and encourage skills and competencies, so children can explore and interact with their world with confidence and assurance.
Starting school can pose a new set of challenges for children that may or may not have been identified in their early years
Our counsellors can work with you to help your child develop the confidence and independence that your child may need before commencing school or during schooling transitions.
Depending on your child’s specific needs, we develop individual programs that can focus on developing skills for managing everyday activities.
We can help children with:
Everyday activities such as handwriting and toilet training
Speech and language development
Fine motor difficulties
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Sensory processing difficulties
Developmental delay
Genetic conditions including Down Syndrome and Achondroplasia
Low muscle tone
Feeding difficulties and oral sensory aversion
Neurological and developmental conditions like Cerebral Palsy and spina bifida
Our services encourage children and families to value their own abilities, strengths, and capacities, helping them to develop the necessary emotional resilience needed to manage disappointments and frustrations.
We work with children and families to:
Increase social skills and relationships
Deepen the understanding and sense of self
Increase the sense of connection with others and the world at large
Extend social, literacy, and numeracy skills
Maintain a healthy relationship with our loved ones
Encouraging resilience
It is important to focus on children’s strengths rather than on negative behaviours. Parents and carers can support children’s wellbeing and emotional development by showing understanding of their feelings and by offering encouragement and specific praise for children’s efforts.
By learning to value their own strengths and efforts, as well as those of others, children become much more adept at coping with stressful or unexpected situations. Through our services, we continually seek opportunities for children to be successful as this leads to children feeling competent and confident in themselves and in their world.
How we work
Our services use a family-centered approach, recognizing the importance of working in partnership with family members. We tailor our support to meet the individual needs of children on the autism spectrum in their natural environment wherever possible. Our approach is based on understanding the learning characteristics of children on the spectrum, promoting the use of visual supports, and structuring their physical environment to encourage meaning and independence.
Our primary years’ services are delivered by a team of qualified education and allied health professionals using an evidence-informed, transdisciplinary framework. We work in partnership with individuals, families, and communities and we provide information, support, and education to give you and your child the specific skills, resources, and networks you need.