Therapy Services
Following our assessment and the creation of goals, we can make recommendations for therapy. Therapy includes 1:1 or group treatment, collaboration and training with those who are key to the young person’s life, onward referrals where required, and sharing therapy strategies that can be used outside therapy sessions. Not all young people will require therapy, and we will be able to identify whether therapy is required during the assessment process.
Occasionally, we may be able to complete therapy based on another Therapist’s assessment, although this is considered on a case-by-case basis as it will depend on the format of the assessment, the time that has passed since it was completed, and whether the recommendations are neurodiversity affirming.
Our Occupational Therapists have many tools that they can use to support therapy interventions. These include but are not limited to Ayres Sensory Integration, Coaching, Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance (CO-OP), The Interoception Curriculum, and Sensory-motor and cognitive approaches to regulation, including Sensory Ladders.
Our Speech and Language Therapists work with children and young people with a variety of speech, language or communication needs. They work closely with families/caregivers and education settings providing specialist support and individualised programmes of activities to support positive outcomes for the child or young person and their family.
Therapy can be completed in a wide range of environments (e.g. school, home, therapy space, wider community), but for optimal results, some treatments such as Ayres Sensory Integration benefit from completion in a therapy space that has specifically been set up for this purpose, and meets environmental fidelity recommendations for Ayres Sensory Integration, which we are lucky to have here at Helping Kids Shine.
We ensure that we use outcome measures to demonstrate the effectiveness of our therapy, and we also encourage feedback from the young person and their caregivers.
We would love to have crystal balls and magic wands, but we sadly don’t. Most young people make progress, but it very much depends on what their goals are, how effective their therapy sessions are, and how engaged those who support the young person are in the therapy process. We will always strive to make as much progress as we can.
This varies and depends on the young person’s strengths, needs, and goals that have been identified during the assessment process. If we are recommending Ayres Sensory Integration therapy, we will typically recommend that this is completed at our Therapy Space. If we are working on functional living skills with a teenager, it could be that we work in the home or the community. If we are working on specific school skills, then school-based sessions could be indicated.
This varies and depends on the young person’s strengths, needs, and goals that have been identified during the assessment process, as well as the type of therapy (e.g. Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, etc.). We would love to give you an accurate answer here but we can’t! For some young people, they may require an assessment and advice, for others they may have an assessment and a block (or more) of therapy provision. Our therapists will always endeavour to set clear goals so that progress against these can be measured as this can then help in decision making of whether further therapy is recommended.