BUSHkids Annual Report 2019-20

ANNUAL REPORT 2019–2020 SECTION TOPIC 14 CHILDREN’S ALLIED HEALTH SERVICES AHS During this time, we were able to maintain provision of Professional Development (PD) through external online courses from the clinicians’ professional bodies, and webinars provided internally through our own Lunchbox Learning . PD emphasised supporting families during COVID-19 and managing children’s anxieties. Our Speech Pathologists (SPs) also trained in the Read3 Program , a newly- approved literacy intervention for BUSHkids that is evidence-informed and covers all the deficits experienced by children with dyslexia. In early 2020, CAHS teams distributed the Birdie books to early childcare centres and the wider community, to support children’s understanding of the recent drought, fires and floods. With the easing of restrictions, the newly-published Birdie and the Virus book was also distributed and these were gratefully received and enjoyed by children, parents and early childhood educators. During the WFH period our referral numbers from the community reduced significantly and maintaining our referral pathways with other providers that were closing or reducing services became a challenge. To ensure our communities were aware BUSHkids was still ‘open and delivering’ we used centralised and local multimedia to raise our profile, providing information about our changed service model. This was to emphasise that families and services could still contact us and receive support – just differently! A staff member at each Centre was nominated as ‘the face of BUSHkids’ for their community and this proved a vital and welcome local connection. Despite the reduction in referrals, the demand for parenting sessions increased and our teams delivered support through programs such as Face your Fears – Do as I Do, 1-2-3 Magic ® & Emotion Coaching, Circle of Security © Parenting TM and Triple P Positive Parenting. Following the return to schools in mid-July and reopening of early childhood centres, we experienced an increase in referrals, in particular directly from families who had identified during the school closure period that their children had been struggling with a variety of concerns such as poor literacy, concentration, fine motor skills and managing anxiety. Although we had great success in the delivery of teleHealth services to most families, we also noted some disengagement with more vulnerable families who were unable to continue or begin support due to inadequate internet services or equipment, the need to juggle priorities with the closure and restrictions of schools and early childhood centres and/or preferring to wait for F2F sessions to resume. Parents of children who stutter feel a high level of stress as they watch their child struggle to communicate and get their words out. In Queensland, support for stuttering can be difficult to get as there are few trained therapists. The pandemic-induced rapid upscaling of our teleHealth service offered a timely opportunity to meet such needs – BUSHkids SP Helen began offering virtual support to children with a stutter from all over the state from our Maroochydore Centre, and five-year-old Oliver* was one of these kids. “We were concerned that the longer his stuttering was left, the more apparent it would become to other people and the more he would struggle in school,” said his mum, Kim. “Oliver had become aware of the fact that he talked differently to others. This caused him anxiety and made him question why he needed the extra help and if there was something wrong with him. “I was a bit worried at first about teleHealth appointments but Oliver loves attending his speech sessions, he looks forward to them with great excitement. All the things I was worried about, like him being distracted and it being hard to develop a relationship weren’t issues at all. “He enjoys the connection he has with his speech therapist and often talks about her outside of his speech sessions. It was a novelty for him to use the computer to do these sessions … but it also allowed Oliver to interact with Helen about familiar things in his home environment. This made the speech work more relevant to Oliver. “Now that he’s doing so much better, Oliver asks me why he doesn’t get to talk to her as often and expressed his disappointment at not being able to speak every week anymore! Oliver feels happy and confident that his speech is improving and will often comment on the difference it makes. BUSHkids has helped me understand which issues of Oliver’s speech we needed to focus on and how to do it. “BUSHkids has worked with Oliver as a whole child, mindful there are other aspects of his life that would impact his condition, ensuring we treat and adjust things as needed.” “I now feel that we can deal with any setbacks and will be supported through them.” Case study: Navigating the ‘bumps’ with BUSHkids

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