How does a Therapy Assistant help my child achieve their goals?

Benefits of adding a Therapy Assistant to your child's team can include: 

• Increased opportunity for your child to practice and develop new skills. 
• Improve access and frequency of sessions while maintaining high quality support.
• Save money, so your NDIS budget goes further. A Therapy Assistant will provide you with increased value for money.
• With many demands on your time, a Therapy Assistant can help you learn and integrate new ideas into daily routines.
• Your child may be more responsive and motivated to work alongside a Therapy Assistant who is there for a set time each week/fortnight etc to support them to develop their skills in areas they find tricky and tend to avoid.
• Your Therapy Assistant will be under the supervision and guidance of a qualified Firstchance Allied Health Professional or Specialist Educator.

How does it work?

Our Therapy Assistants is supported by a qualified and experienced Firstchance Allied Health Professional or Specialist Educator. Their role is to develop a program of supports based on the individual goals developed with you.

Therapy Assistants work alongside our qualified and experienced Firstchance Allied Health Professional or Specialist Educator, who will train and regularly review their work. A comprehensive program of supports will be developed to meet the needs of your child, and reviews take place at regular intervals. You will be consulted to ensure we continue to achieve sustainable outcomes for your child.

What is the difference between a Therapist and a Therapy Assistant?

Qualified Professionals - Are professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and specialist educators, are trained and have high-level skills in their discipline area. At Firstchance they are responsible for assessing, identifying, diagnosing, making recommendations, and supporting children with a disability or developmental delay or health conditions.

Qualified Professionals will maintain responsibility for assessments and clinical decision-making including working with you to identify, prioritise and review goals for your child and developing a program of supports and strategies which can be implemented by the Therapy Assistant.

Therapy Assistant: can be university students training in Allied Health or qualified and skilled staff who have experience working with children and families. Therapy Assistants are employed under the supervision of a qualified professional who is required to develop goals with the family and develop a program of support for the Therapy Assistant to implement. The Therapy Assistant will be regularly supervised by a Qualified Professional.