Supporting kids to participate in activities they want and need to do

Occupational therapy helps children take part in the everyday activities (their "occupations") that matter to them and their families. That might include getting dressed, joining in at school, managing big feelings, holding a pencil, or playing with friends.

At Kid Link, we get to know your child's strengths, needs, and goals. We then work alongside you, your child's school, and their wider care team to build a therapy plan that develops skills, accommodates differences, and removes barriers to participation.

We recognise that many of the challenges faced by neurodivergent children come from living in a world built for neurotypical brains. Our therapy works to address those barriers, not change who your child is.

That's really up to you and what's happening at home. If your child is finding daily life difficult, and it's affecting their wellbeing or your family's, it's worth a conversation with an OT.

Paediatric OT covers a wide range of areas including mental health, sensory regulation, motor skills, equipment, and home modifications. No single clinic covers all of them. If you're not sure whether Kid Link is the right fit for your child's needs, give our Family Liaison Team a call and we'll point you in the right direction.

Areas we work on:

• Regulation (sensory and emotional)
• Mental health
• Parenting strategies and support
• Social participation
• Self-care and independent living skills
• Behaviour
• Early intervention and development
• Executive functioning
• Gross motor skills
• Fine motor skills, including handwriting

What our service looks like:

• We work closely with you, sharing education about the approaches relevant to your child.
• We involve you in therapy so you feel confident using strategies at home and in the community.
• We liaise with your child's other supports (teachers, paediatricians, speech pathologists, psychologists) where it helps.
• We work with your child in a strengths-based way and model strategies that you can use outside our sessions.

Kid Link uses a parent education model that builds your skills and confidence alongside your child's. We don't follow a one-size-fits-all program. Instead, we tailor our approach to each child's interests, motivations, and needs, drawing on a range of evidence-based frameworks. These include:

• Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (Dr Ross Greene)
• Play-based and child-led therapy
• Emotional regulation programs
• Task analysis and skills training
• Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance (CO-OP)
• Social Stories
• Positive parenting and behaviour support
• Evidence-informed psychological approaches (e.g. CBT, motivational interviewing)
• Feeding and mealtime approaches
• Neurodiversity-affirming play-based therapy
• Sensory processing education and individualised sensory profiles
• Perspective-taking skills, taught through a neurodiversity-affirming lens

Neurodiversity-affirming therapy starts from the view that there are many valid ways for a brain to work. Being autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent isn't something to be fixed. It's part of who your child is.

In practice, that means we don't try to make your child appear "less autistic" or mask their natural way of being. Instead, we focus on:

• Building skills your child wants and needs for the life they want to lead
• Reducing the environmental and social barriers that get in the way
• Supporting self-understanding, self-advocacy, and self-regulation
• Helping families and schools adjust expectations and environments

If you'd like to know more about how this looks in our sessions, your OT is always happy to talk it through.

Family-centred practice means we work with you as equal partners in your child's therapy. You know your child better than anyone. We bring the clinical lens, you bring the lived experience, and together we set goals and build a plan.

We can't do this work without you. Active parent involvement, communication, and follow-through between sessions are what make therapy effective.

To make sure we provide the right support to the right families, here's what falls outside our scope:

We don't provide:

• Assistive technology assessment or prescription
• Home modification assessment or prescription
• Behaviour Support Plans
• Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA)
• Crisis support

Our service model also doesn't include:

• Therapy with children without family involvement (with a few exceptions for teens)
• Therapy without education and family support
• Ongoing therapy without active rapport and trust with the family
• Ongoing therapy unrelated to family-agreed goals
• Therapy that doesn't address functional challenges

If you're not sure whether we're the right fit, please call us. We'd rather help you find the right service than start something that won't meet your needs.

Kid Link is primarily a clinic-based service because our model relies on parents being actively involved in sessions.

That said, we do offer blocks of therapy in homes, schools, kinders, or the community where it's clearly relevant to your child's goals. A good example is public transport training, where it doesn't make sense to work on the skill anywhere other than on a bus, tram, or train. Other examples might include working on bike riding, navigating a playground, or building specific routines in your home environment.

We also complete periodic visits for meetings, observations, assessments, or training when needed. What we don't generally offer is ongoing weekly therapy in offsite locations unrelated to a specific functional goal. If you'd like the bulk of your child's therapy delivered offsite, a mobile or community-based provider may suit your family better.

Chat to your OT or our Family Liaison Team if you're not sure whether a block of offsite sessions would suit your child's goals.

Yes. We run intensive group programs (usually 3 to 5 sessions) during school holidays, and some specific groups during the term. Existing Kid Link families hear about these by email; groups open to non-clients are advertised through our newsletter and social media.

Not at the moment.