Unlocking the power of teamwork. The vital role of teamwork to elevate your child’s progress.

Let’s celebrate this remarkable superhero and the parents’ bravery in embracing his potential!

Most children will have multiple therapists on their early intervention team each with different areas of expertise. For example, it is common for a child to have a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist as well as a therapist that utilises a more holistic curriculum (e.g. ABA and ESDM).

Unfortunately in most early invention teams the therapists are working independently rather than working cohesively as a team.

One of our therapists recently had a 1 hour Zoom meeting with no less than 7 people attending including both parents. As many of you now know, trying to achieve anything over Zoom with that many people in a space of 1 hour is almost impossible and yet, we finished early and the meeting was incredibly productive. Why?

The therapist observed that the parents were great at leading the meeting and knowing who and when to direct questions to. This meant that when the team was discussing the child’s numerous challenges, even though the parents didn’t have the technical or theoretical knowledge, they knew exactly who on the team would be best placed to offer ideas and strategies for specific challenges.

It was also clear that this was one of those rare teams where even though therapists hadn’t met each other previously, the child’s mother made sure that the therapists were aligned in how they viewed child development and this ultimately meant that everyone was working towards the same clear vision. This was particularly important when the topic of the meeting shifted to discussing future supports for when the child makes the transition to Kindergarten next year.

Everyone being on the same page meant that:

• There was no conflicting ideas
• There was more certainty in terms of direction for next year
• There was a clear plan thus making the transition a lot smoother for the child

Teamwork makes dreams work!