News

This workshop is our new updated workshop with new and improved content, more video clips, and is even more interactive and hands-on. This workshop will give you the basic tools and theory to provide therapy services to young children with special needs. It will also give you theoretical understanding how to manage behaviours effectively, how to use prompts and to break down skills into small manageable teaching steps.

We offer this training in small groups only to maximise the role playing and the direct feedback given to participants.  The workshop will cover theoretical and practical topics including;

My name is Elysha Clark Whitney and I’m a student in Year 10 at Sydney Girls High School. In November of this year, I spent a week doing work experience at Aspire Early Intervention. It was an absolutely amazing experience. All of the staff were very welcoming and taught me so much. I also got to work with lots of children in a wide range of activities, which was both fun and educational.

On the first day, we visited a boy at his pre-school, which was a great introduction to the week. I then sat in on a team meeting for the same boy, and this was my first chance to see how the Early Intervention program works. It was really interesting and was especially good when the boy mastered the new things we were teaching him.

The next day, I sat in on another team meeting with a different boy, and again got to see the work that was being done with him and the progress that he was making. I then did some work in the office, helping to prepare resources for use in therapy sessions. This was also good because it allowed me to see the work that goes in to preparing Aspire’s programs

On the Wednesday, I went to an intake meeting to see a boy who was just beginning the program. This was very interesting as it allowed me to compare children who had been in the program to one who hadn’t, which really highlighted the merits of the ABA program. I then continued with the preparation of the resources.

On the Thursday morning, I helped out with a social skills group. This was really fun as it allowed me to work with more than one child in a play – based environment, rather than in a therapy session. In the afternoon, I sat in on 2 therapy sessions. This was the first time I’d seen how an actual therapy session worked, and it was really interesting and also very fun.

On my last day at Aspire, I did quite a few things. In the morning, I helped out with a school readiness program. This was great, as there were lots of kids there, so I could work with different kids at the same time and see how the children interacted with each other. I then continued preparing the resources and helped set up some new toys that had just been delivered. In the afternoon, I sat in on another therapy session, which was again a great experience. I was very sad to leave at the end of the week.

The week I spent at Aspire was amazing for so many reasons. I loved working with all the kids because they were so nice and friendly. It was also great to witness them learning new skills, which made the week really rewarding. The variety of experiences during the week gave me a great idea of what Aspire does. I feel like I have learnt a lot, and by the end of the week I was even allowed to do some of the therapy myself.

Thank you to everyone at Aspire for such a fantastic experience.

Elysha

Due to overwhelming demand we have decided to run one more workshop for this year. This workshop is our new updated workshop with new improved content, more video clips, and is even more interactive. This workshop will give you the basic tools to provide hands on therapy services to young children with special needs. It will also give you theoretical understanding how to manage behaviours effectively, how to use prompts and to break down skills into small manageable teaching steps.

We offer this training in small groups only to maximise the role playing and the direct feedback given to participants.  The workshop will cover theoretical and practical topics including;

8:30-12:30 Monday to Friday for two weeks in January 2012

Kindergarten is a big step for a lot of our children, it’s exciting but can also be extremely daunting. We will be running an intensive school readiness program at our office in Wentworth Point (near Olympic Park) from Monday the 9th of January to Friday the 20th of January 2012. This program will give the children an opportunity to learn and practice some of the rules and instructions they will need to follow at school so the transition between school holidays and ‘big school’ will be easier.

We will be focusing on

·      Participating in a group environment

·      Putting your hand up

·      Requesting to go to the toilet

·      Independently accessing and packing away your lunch

·      Basic literacy skills

·      Basic numeracy skills

·      Fine motor skills

·      Phonemic awareness

·      Following natural 3 step receptive instructions

Incidental Goals:

We will also incidentally be addressing skills such as listening to an instruction on the mat and then independently completing it at the desk as well as working in pairs and how to ask a teacher for help if you do not know what to do or where you should be. There will be no more than 6 children in the group so places are limited. Two of our experienced staff will be guiding and teaching your child individual skills necessary for a smooth transition to get ready for next phase of their education.

For more information and to secure your enrolment for 2012 contact our office manager Jacqii on 02-9739 9798 or via email jacqii@aspireearlyintervention.com

Aspire will be running social skills groups in our office located at Wentworth Point.

Our small group environment focuses on enhancing social communication, understanding and getting along with others as well as self esteem and social confidence. The groups consist of a maximum of five children and two therapists; group allocation is based upon both the age and ability of the child. We meet for a two-hour session once a week for a period of ten weeks. One parent training session is provided halfway through the 10-week program and parents will receive a brief evaluation after each sitting with possible targets to work on at home or at school.

Who:

Participation may be helpful for children whose peer relationships are hampered by issues related to

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), Asperger’s syndrome,

pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), learning problems, language delays, and auditory processing disorders.

Focus Areas:

We address these determined by the developmental age and ability of the group in question.

Our Skill Areas include;

• Eye contact and joint attention

• Functional pretend play

• Greetings

• Listening skills

• Conversation skills

• Sharing and turn taking

• Co-operative play

• Asking for help

• Initiating play

• Confidence around competition (winning and losing)

• Understanding and using body language

• Voice tone

• Developing and maintaining friendships

• Problem solving and conflict resolution

• How to deal with teasing and bullying

• Learning about me (self-understanding)

• Understanding about others

We address these focus areas using a multitude of strategies including; structured activities, games,

discussion, role-play and free play. All of which are geared toward improving both verbal and non-verbal

interaction, through the use of positive reinforcement.

Getting Started:

Initially, we conduct a parent interview (generally over the phone). This gives you an opportunity

to address any questions or concerns you have, as well as giving us the opportunity to assess your child’s

needs and determine which of our groups would be their best “t”.

Our next ten-week program will commence on Thursday the 28th of July 2011. Enrolment closes on the 21st

of July 2011.

This program can be funded though FaCHSIA if your child is eligible.

The early learners group will run from 10-12 on a Thursday morning.

The school-aged group will run from 10-12 on a Saturday morning.

If you are interested please contact the office for more details on

info@aspireearlyintervention.com or 02-97399798

jacqii@aspireearlyintervention.com or 0401 678 867

A little over two years ago, I found myself looking for a career change. Having worked within the recruitment industry for eight years, successfully running my own recruitment business for four of those eight years, I decided it was time for something new. A good friend introduced me to Dianne who was looking for someone to assist her with the running of her company, Aspire Early Intervention. After speaking with Dianne and hearing her vision and passion for providing children with special needs therapies to improve their lives, I took up the opportunity and have never looked back.

I originally commenced in an accounts capacity but soon became involved in liaising with our families, which I must say is my favourite part of this role. As a mother of three beautiful girls, I can only imagine the impact of having a child with special needs would have on families, so to have the ability to offer our families support, a sympathetic ear and most importantly an opportunity to access services that can truly make a difference is amazing.

I have completed the Aspire ABA course and have worked with families both in home and school environments. It is tremendously rewarding to see the change in the children we work with as a result of the programs put in place. I genuinely love working with children and after seeing the positive difference Aspire makes in children’s lives, I commenced my Bachelor of Education (Primary) and have chosen subjects that will enable me to specialise in teaching children with special needs.

Over the past two years, Aspire has grown from three employees to seventeen. I have the pleasure of working with sixteen of the most dedicated and passionate colleagues, headed by a truly inspirational director, Dianne Verstappen. I am a firm believer in, if you can see a way to make something better, do it, and that is exactly what Dianne has done in creating Aspire Early Intervention. I had never worked in an industry such as this previously, so when I was looking to start taking enquiries from families, I asked Dianne, “What makes us different from other providers? If I was ringing you, looking for support, why would I choose you?” and her answer was simple, “We acknowledge that all children are different. Our programs are individualised to meet the needs of our families. We care about those kids and the difficulties the families face.” At the time, I must admit I did think that sounded a bit cliché and very sales like but after working with this company, I can confidently say, that it is so true.

Whilst I do not get the opportunity to personally meet all of our families, I do know each and every one of their names. When our team gets together for meetings, I love hearing about the progress of our children, both whilst they are taking part in our programs and when their programs are complete. Similarly, when I hear about the barriers encountered within the programs and watching the therapists all pull together to offer support and ideas on how the programs can be altered to achieve the best results is a great process to watch. I constantly receive emails from all of our staff on new research they have found, blogs that are of interest, ideas they have on how we can make our programs even better….whether they are in your homes working with your children or at home in their own time, making a difference in children with special needs lives is always on their minds.

I love working at Aspire and I look forward to working with our families and dedicated employees for many years to come.

-Jacqii

All of the staff at Aspire would like to wish our families a fantastic 2011.

2010 proved to be a very exciting year for Aspire. This was a year where Aspire grew to 16 staff and we opened our permanent office at Wentworth Point. Our office opening was fun with wine, great Italian food and fantastic people.

It is always nice to work together with a great team, it is even better when you work with people who are dedicated to making a change in the families’ lives they are working with and the passion of our staff is exemplary.

It has been an absolute pleasure to see these developments and this could not have been possible without Jacqii, our organised office manager and Miruna who has taken on more of a management role this year after being with us for two and a half years. She, amongst other things, was responsible for the organisation all of our staff training. It is also incredibly pleasing to see that we have had very little turnover of our junior staff and we are continuing to recruit staff to provide our families with qualified and well-trained therapists in their geographical area. A special mention goes to Kylie Bailey who has been to go-to person if something needed to be organised, whether they are resources or an event where everyone needs to be involved we know we can leave this in her capable hands.

Next year our office will continue to grow and we have a few developments that we are hoping to commence early in the New Year. We are looking into providing swimming classes as we have two experienced swimming teachers on our team and we are fortunate that our office comes equipped with an indoor pool.

In addition, together with Branko and Mike from Bizar Mobile we are developing an iPad application to assist our children with special needs in learning new skills. Keep looking at our blog for more updates on this in the New Year. Hopefully the first version will be ready by the first of February.

As our staff continues to grow we will also start in July with another course of senior therapy training while some of our other staff will finalise their program manager’s training. We will also continuing to provide workshops on a variety of topics for parents and independent therapists.

Michelle Backley, Karen Lythe and I will be heading to Washington DC for a conference at the end of January. ABI in Encino have been very gracious and will host Michelle for a week long organisational visit prior to the conference.

All in all, 2011 will prove to be another exciting year for our staff, our families and we will continue to provide quality, personable and tailored services for you and your family.

Dianne