BUSHkids Annual Report 2011-2012
BUNDABERG As a result of Bundaberg BUSHkids being selected as the beneficiary of the inaugural Mumma’s Nest Boutique Markets, we have found that there has become a greater awareness of our service among the community.
I just love being a part of this wonderful organisation. I have welcomed the many changes that have take place during the past 12 months and look forward to more exciting progressions yet to come. IN OUR COMMUNITY Given that Bundaberg is a well- established regional city servicing a much wider area, we are lucky to have many early intervention pro- viders and educational and health facilities. The start of 2012 saw the opening of the autism-specific AEIOU centre here. We also have a number of private occupational therapists and speech pathologists, panel providers of the Helping Children with Autism funding package. The community has several agencies providing parental and family support, the Triple P program offered through a number of service providers. We have attended many profession- al networking meetings this year. In September, our team attended the bi-annual Early Intervention Forum. This meeting provides a valuable opportunity to meet with other early intervention service providers in Bundaberg.
The forum is well attended by representatives from Queensland Health, Disability Services Qld, Education Queensland and Catholic Education representatives, private therapists and various early childhood service providers. The team has visited kindergartens and local schools, providing group and individual programs and meeting with education staff. Our team has continued to host ‘ meet and greets’ with service providers in Bundaberg. In July we met with a representative from Centacare, and in August we hosted a visit from the Child Development Service (Queensland Health). Both visits were fantastic opportunities to share our roles in the field of early intervention, and to engage in productive discussion as to how we can best support each of our services. Strong links continue between BUSHkids and the Child Health Nurses at Community Family Health. Claire and Laura regularly present talks on speech and language development and motor and play development to families at the various parenting groups offered through Child Health.
IN OUR OFFICE As mentioned before, the centre has had a bit of a ‘facelift’ with new paint in the OT office and large group room. We are loving our new height-adjustable tables in the group therapy room, and are eagerly awaiting the addition of children’s chairs in a number of different sizes to accommodate all of our clients! Whilst our team is enjoying our outside play area, we feel further landscaping surrounding the concrete slab is becoming essential.
A BUNDABERGWISH LIST ITEM As ever there is a myriad of toys, resources and programs that would support the valuable work that we do with children. While we continue to work away at obtaining resources on our wishlist, we also wanted to highlight one of our larger needs: iPads. There’s no doubt that the ‘tablet revolution’ has commenced, with many of our children and families already owning and using iPads. A number of other health and educational professionals within our community are also using iPads in their work, with our colleagues very enthusiastic about the usefulness of these tools. As technology progresses, we feel we need to keep up to date with technology to provide the best therapy that we can. The educational and ‘therapy’ market appears to be well-established in terms of app availability, and we envis- age that there could be hundreds of apps that would support our work as therapists. ( We of course can’t forget that the iPad would be an amazing motivator for all young generation ‘i’-ers!)
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