Providing Face-to-face Support in Partnership with Angel Flight
Over the last few years, my update letters have focussed on the development of our new teleBUSHkids Centre in our Toowong precinct. While telepractice gives us the opportunity to provide more services to more families across the state, I have always stressed that telepractice doesn’t replace the need for our therapists and facilitators in regional locations, rather it complements and extends their work while making access to vital services easier for kids and families.
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the great work our staff are doing on the ground in rural and remote communities and show how telepractice and face-to-face intervention work in concert to provide the support kids need in remote locations.
As you may know, back in September 2022 we signed a memorandum of understanding with Angel Flight Australia, a charity which provides non-emergency flights to help people living in rural and remote Australia access specialist medical treatment that would not otherwise be available to them because of the distance and travel costs. This aim closely matches our own ethos of providing support for children and families who through availability or affordability are unable to access services locally, so it was a natural fit for us to partner with Angel Flight to make our services available to more families in Western Queensland. The partnership allows BUSHkids clinicians to travel out to remote communities on Angel Flight planes at no cost, to provide free face-to-face allied health services which are not easily accessed without travelling in to one of our regional service centres.
The BUSHkids team comprising Director Clinical Services and Strategy, Susan Harrison; Speech Pathologist, Reegan Phillott; Senior Clinician Occupational Therapist, Ingrid Fourie; and Occupational Therapist, Shanley Diamond heading out to Cunnamulla from Brisbane’s Archerfield Airport with volunteer Angel Flight pilot Paul Michel at the controls.
The inaugural BUSHkids flight to Cunnamulla took place in October 2022 with a team of our allied health professionals able to spend four days in the town providing outreach services to local communities in collaboration with the Western Queensland Primary Health Network. Thanks to Angel Flight our clinicians can now get out to Western Queensland communities quickly and spend more precious time on the ground providing expert help to kids, their families and their communities. Since that first flight our teams have made regular trips to remote towns across Western Queensland and have been able to provide support to countless kids both directly and through building skills in the local community.
One such example is little Tanzie*, a three-year-old girl who’s family live on a remote property in Western Queensland. Not surprisingly Tanzie and her family have limited access to allied health services locally, and while Tanzie had met all her developmental milestones, her mum was concerned she was not talking as much as the other kids at daycare.
When our speech pathologist first saw Tanzie during an Angel Flight visit, she could only say around 30 single words and was struggling to be understood. By being on the ground, the BUSHkids team were able to observe Tanzie at daycare and watch how she interacted with other kids and her educators. While she was clearly a happy little girl, she often struggled to communicate, using gestures rather than words; her educators had difficulty understanding her and this was a frustration for Tanzie and it was holding back her development.
Having observed her difficulties firsthand, the team delivered a training session at the daycare centre specifically about communication supports. This session equipped the educators with a variety of resources and strategies to utilise with Tanzie and other kids at the centre who were having communication difficulties.
To specifically help Tanzie the team worked closely with her mum to coach her in ways to support and encourage her daughter’s language development. The team worked directly with Tanzie during frequent visits to Western Queensland and in between face-to-face visits our speech pathologist was able to support Tanzie and her mum via telepractice, engaging with Tanzie and providing her mum with further tips and strategies to build on her developing language skills.
Tanzie has come on leaps and bounds with BUSHkids. Her educators have noticed a marked improvement in her communication, they can understand her and more easily respond to her needs. She now speaks in phrases and sentences, even narrating what she‘s doing as she plays. Not surprisingly her mum is both delighted and relieved to see her daughter flourishing with our help.
With your continued support we will be able to help more kids like little Tanzie. We understand cost of living pressures are tough at the moment and greatly appreciate any support our donors can provide at this difficult time. Gifts of $2 or more which you can give is tax deductable and to make donation easier, you can give online through our website; go to bushkids.org.au and click on the ‘Donate’ button.
Thank you again for your support. We couldn’t continue to provide our free services to kids and families in rural, regional, and remote Queensland without your help.
Yours sincerely
Carlton Meyn
Chief Executive Officer
[1] While this is a real case, personal information about the child and location has been changed to protect the family’s privacy.