BUSHkids Annual Report 2015-16

CENTRES

Centre reports

Bundaberg

Dalby

Emerald

The change in our model of care has seen an increase in community education and community engagement activities from the Bundaberg team. Targeted programs being run have also increased and programs currently provided to our community include: PALS, Fun friends, Stop Think Do, Alert program, and Fingergym; the team has goals for the year ahead to take on new programs and community capacity-building courses, e.g. parent play. We aim to provide ongoing support to the Bundaberg and outreach communities in the areas of community capacity-building and targeted programs.

We are running more groups than ever! Our Psychologist offered ADHD education groups and small groups in schools, with the Psychologist and FHSW trained to run Triple P and keenly providing the programs to the communities. PALs is offered far and wide by the FHSW in the majority of kindergartens in Dalby, and this is now expanding to Millmerran, Cecil Plains, and Chinchilla. Prep readiness talks were provided in Millmerran, Jandowae and Kingaroy, helping children with school readiness; as well, the Speech Pathologist and OT offered school readiness programs here at the Centre early in 2016. The Occupational Therapists ran many programs to schools in Dalby and at Moonie State School for handwriting, as well as the Alert Programs. Our Speech Pathologist helped provide training to professionals and parents in the Read and Grow program.

SLP Felicity continued her busy caseload in local and outreach communities, as well as initiating recruitment of a volunteer, with the assistance of Rachel in the Brisbane office, to support resource preparation and administration for the clinicians’ busy caseloads. The aim of this support is to reduce preparation time and increase the number of clients on active caseloads. FHSW Rhianna and SLP Felicity have been working closely with The Gemfields playgroup families, conducting Read and Grow sessions where there is limited access to early education services. The FHSW and SLP have also supported the playgroup’s efforts in improving the facilities, creating community links such as The Gemfields RSL members volunteering to mow the lawn. Psychologist Myles has provided multiple seminar sessions of Triple P at the start of the year and more are planned. Myles has also provided outreach to Clermont and Dysart, as well as beginning to engage in telephone sessions to outlying communities where appropriate to do so. New graduate OT Jess is busy establishing her caseload, and planning to commence a Fingergym group with our FHSW. Jess enjoyed outreach to Clermont earlier in the year. The Emerald Centre has nice grassy areas around the building, but there are often bindii and prickles, making it difficult to make the best use of this resource, as lots of our children love to take their shoes off. If we could get the prickles permanently removed, we could make better use of this outdoor space.

ACTIVITYAND OUTPUTS

We have had a few visits from the clinical leadership team for building audits and professional support through in-services, observations, face-to-face supervisions and team planning. During this time with the professional leads, the team identified goals for the coming year, including: re-establishing psychology services, continuing multi- disciplinary work, continue providing outreach support in priority areas, and establishing new programs/courses (parent play, PALS/ Alert, ADHD parent workshop, A Steady Start to Schoool) in addition to current targeted programs. One of our key achievements this year has been our multidisciplinary teamwork approach. During this time, the team had effective open communication and collaboration which positively impacted on clinical outcomes and family-centred practice. We hope to continue this with our new full team. Although our Centre building has been identified as less than ideal, in attempt to make the building more family-friendly, we have identified some areas of the building that could be improved, such as with new paint and rearranging some of the spaces.

Our Centre is a lovely welcoming place for families to access and is well resourced. The team is very positive in supporting each other in providing the best possible services to as many families as possible. Dalby Centre now begins a new era with a new team for the coming year – which is exciting to continue with the great work we are doing.

IN OUR CENTRE

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