12
Early intervention and multidisciplinary work
Dr Shelton provided an informative presentation
on the evidence supporting the importance and
effectiveness of early intervention.
He highlighted the need for parent education and
awareness from pre conception. This added weight
to the proposal that our service should become more
focused on early intervention and education.
Intake
The intake process for referrals was a big topic for
discussion and workshopping. With input from
mentors, Dr Shelton, clinical Council members and
BUSHkids staff, it was determined that referrals
from parents were the most logical and that the time
from referral to ‘first contact’ was often far too long.
Changes such as parent referrals, intake interviews
at the time of referral and screening opportunities
were all suggested to improve efficiencies.
Our mentors and staff –
•
Helen Dimond for the Speech Pathologists
•
Karlee Wiles for the Occupational Therapists
•
Jane Morgan for the Psychologists and Family
Health Support Workers
•
Chelsea O’Brien, Clinical Services Manager
•
Kathryn Healey, Service Delivery Coordinator
–
played a vital role in the effectiveness of our 2012
Annual Conference. Thank you to you all.
STAFF MATTERS
We continue to employ the same staff numbers
in each centre, including a Psychologist, Speech
Pathologist, Occupational Therapist and Family
Health Support Worker, with a Family Health
Support Worker in Inglewood.
Professional development
As an organisation we place great importance on the
professionalism of our staff and as much as possible
facilitate the constant updating of their skills. This
has been done by supporting targeted professional
development activities. We will continue to support
staff in this way in the coming year.
Mentoring
Mentoring of frontline professionals plays an vital
role in ensuring the delivery of quality clinical
services to our clients, and 556 hours of supervision
of clinical staff were provided in the 2012 year; we
will continue our mentoring program throughout
the coming year.
Distances travelled
Total BUSHkids travel during the last year was more
than 90,000km driven around Queensland.
I want to express my sincere appreciation to all our
staff for their contribution to the organisation: our
clinical teams delivering services and caring for the
children and families under their care, our mentors
for their wisdom and knowledge in supporting our
clinicians, our clinical leaders involved in setting our
clinical direction, and our administration support
teams including Ingrid for her dedication to our
donors, and Kaylene, our accountant, ever watchful
of our budget and investments and ensuring our
staff and bills are paid on time. We could not have
achieved what we have without each of you.
Volunteeering
Volunteers bring enthusiasm, experience, much-
needed additional skills and fresh ideas, as well as
their labour, time and energy. They are another link
with the community, another way of attracting sup-
port, another way of ‘spreading the message’. Vol-
Professional development
July 2011-June 2012
Totals
Number of staff who applied for
professional development
21
Days
106.5
Mentoring
July 2011 - June 2012
Number hours
supervision
Speech Pathologists
110
Occupational Therapists
110
Family Health Support
Workers
110
Psychologists – Provisional
136
Psychologists – Registered
90
TOTAL hours
556
CENTRE
km
BUNDABERG
4,730
DALBY
6,353
EMERALD
12,736
INGLEWOOD
5,072
MOUNT ISA
3,805
WARWICK
3,500
BRISBANE - GM
18,075
BRISBANE - Maintenance
3,6671
GM