Perfectly Made Early Childhood Intervention

29/11/2025

Here my little Em is having some play time. I was at her eye level when she was on her side playing with me but she decided to roll on to her back. I’m sharing this little interaction to highlight how she uses her sense of touch. She uses her hands and feet to be some of her eyesight - notice her feet are feeling her surroundings. She does this all day long. She gets the biggest smiles when we touch her feet. I usually touch her feet gently before I come up to her face to say hello so that I don’t scare her. Also notice her reaction to the squeal of her older sibling at the end of the video. Life of a neurodivergent household - never a dull moment 😜

29/11/2025

This week I attended the Thriving Kids deep dive on behalf of Professionals Australia and raised critical issues on behalf of allied health professionals, families, and children.
Key points we highlighted:
🔵GP-led access won’t work — especially in regional/remote areas. Families often don’t have a consistent GP, many have closed books or long wait times, and trust is essential before sharing concerns.
🔵Protect the existing workforce. Predominantly women, mothers, many neurodivergent or disabled. Credentialling and funding must not exclude experienced practitioners, and private practices must be recognised for their central role.
🔵Children outside “typical” settings must not be missed. Many are not in ECEC or school; supports must be accessible before families reach these systems.
🔵 Programs must be co-designed with disability community oversight valuing lived experience at all stages of planning and implementation. Not just health, professional or education stakeholders.
🔵Follow the Best Practice Framework. Evidence-informed care must balance research, practitioner expertise, and lived experience—not generic, predetermined programs.
🔵Supports must align with the social and human rights model of disability. We must avoid replicating medical-model approaches used in health departments or behavioural models currently used in schools.
🔵Children need the right supports, not “one-size-fits-all.” For example, a child with Childhood Apraxia of Speech requires targeted Speech Pathology, not a key worker—high-quality early intervention matters. Supports must acknowledge the needs of the child across all areas of their lives.
🔵Supports must be trauma-aware, local, flexible and culturally safe. Many families cannot access GPs, ECEC or CFHN clinics; multiple community-based pathways are essential.
❤️We’ll continue advocating for a Thriving Kids model that is evidence-informed, genuinely codesigned, grounded in the social and human rights model of disability, and ensures every child can access the supports they need—when they need them. We acknowledge the importance that every service be supported to become culturally safe and that First Nations children and communities need First Nations led, community-controlled services.

28/11/2025

‘Let’s Wait and See’ Is a harmful delay tactic. 🛑✋

“Wait and see” doesn’t appear in the Children & families act, It doesn’t appear in the SEND regulations & It doesn’t appear in the Code of Practice.

That’s because it’s not a process. It’s not best practice. It’s not supportive at all! It’s a delay tactic (dressed up as “professional judgement”) and our children pay the price for that!

What does “Let’s wait and see” really mean? 👇🏻

“Let’s watch them struggle first.
Let’s plop them into deep water and see how long they can tread.
Let’s pretend we don’t see them kicking to survive (after all, we need to promote independence and resilience, and we wouldn’t want them becoming overly reliant on us).
Let’s consider throwing them a rubber ring once their head finally goes under water.
Then we’ll know if they REALLY need help or not.
At least once we see them truly reach breaking point, we can finally stop questioning their needs and put some support in place” 😓

No child should have to reach crisis before anyone lifts a finger 😩. No parent should be told to sit back and wait while everything falls apart.

Early Help isn’t optional. Support isn’t optional.
Reasonable adjustments aren’t optional

And “wait and see” is nothing more than a polite way of saying “We’ll act when it’s too late.”

I’ve been working on a case this week with the sweetest child, the kind of child who masks so well that the outside world sees “fine” while his inside world is falling apart. A child who was left by the very professionals who were supposed to offer ‘Early Help’.

His mother was told…

“Let’s see how he goes over the next year.”
“Let’s wait and see.”

But amazing mum refused to wait. Mama bear smashed it and got the EHCP anyway!

I wonder how many of us have been fed the same line? How many times have we heard…

“Let’s wait and see…” whilst watching our child sink?

I was told it so often by my son’s first SENCO that we had no choice but to remove him from that school.
Thankfully, his second SENCO got masking kids.

Sending so much love to anyone in this sad situation

28/11/2025

22/11/2025

22/11/2025

21/11/2025

21/11/2025

Some Autistic people experience sudden, devastating drops into despair, hopelessness, and panic, with an incredible level of intensity.

While not a formal diagnosis, this experience has come to be known as an anxious depressive attack (ADA), an urgent state of emotional distress that is familiar to many Autistic people.

An ADA “mostly begins with an abrupt surge of intense anxiety followed by uninterrupted intrusive thoughts; lasting ruminations about regret or worry produced by violent anxiety, agitation, and loneliness.”*

Let me try to describe what an ADA feels like.

Out of nowhere, or after one small thing, you may feel a wave of suffocating despair that feels impossible to escape.
You’re not just anxious; you feel completely hopeless.

Some clinicians are now using the term anxious depressive attack (ADA) to describe this kind of episode.
It’s not an official diagnosis, but it names something many Autistic people have experienced: a sudden and intense mental health crash marked by severe hopelessness, emotional pain, and overwhelming anxiety.

An ADA often begins with a deep sense of emotional collapse. From there, intense anxiety sets in.
Thoughts become intrusive and nonstop.
You may feel panicked, numb, or completely detached.

It can be hard to speak, hard to think, and impossible to function.
Outwardly, someone might seem quiet or withdrawn, yet internally, they are in distress.

For Autistic people who already experience heightened sensitivity to stress, social rejection, and emotional overload, these attacks can be especially frequent and intense.

Recent research suggests that anxious depressive attacks may be the link between rejection sensitivity and treatment-resistant depression.
Rejection sensitivity can lead to these attacks, and the attacks themselves can make depression worse.

There is also evidence that some brains are simply wired to feel rejection more intensely.
That’s not a defect or a flaw; it’s simply a neurological difference.
This understanding could lead to treatments that are actually designed for brains like ours.

If you have had an ADA, or watched someone you care about go through one, you know how real and painful it is.
We need more research, better support, and a system that sees what so many of us are actually going through.

I am not a fan of research aimed at eradicating autism.
I am a fan of research that prioritizes the quality of life for Autistic people. We must find ways to help those who suffer these frightening attacks, and it starts by formally identifying the experience.

If you are a research ju**ie like I am, or if you just want to read more about this topic, here’s the link to the research (and the source for my quote):

*🔗 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/npr2.12399

21/11/2025

Spread the Christmas cheer with us 🤶✨🎅

This festive season, we’re on a mission with local businesses to make Christmas brighter for local families and individuals in need. We are currently seeking donations for our Annual Toy & Food Hamper Drive 🧸

We’re accepting NEW & unwrapped non-perishable food items and toys to ensure everyone gets to enjoy the magic of Christmas, no matter their circumstances ❤️

If you’d like to make a difference, you can drop off your donations at one of the participating businesses listed below or at our Tahmoor Community Centre. Together, we can create a season full of joy and hope for those in our community who need it most 🎄

We have a bunch of amazing local businesses onboard to support & be a drop off location - You can drop off to the below locations:
Tahmoor Community Centre
Wollondilly Community Leisure Centre, Picton
Tyre Power, Tahmoor
Century 21, Picton
Wollondilly Angilcan School (WAC)
Mt Gibraltar Preschool, Bowral
3 Steps Early Learning Centre, Camden
Picton Bowling Club
Mittagong Primary School
Oxley College
Hilltop Public School
Colovale Public School
Douglas Park Public School
Tahmoor Public School
Community Links Wellbeing Mental Health Programs
Argyle Hair Design

19/11/2025