Sum Of Us Kids Therapy Hub

25/11/2024

Welcome to our new Speechie, Lauren Camilleri :)

Lauren (she/ her), is a passionate and experienced speech pathologist from the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. She believes that therapy should be engaging, empowering, and fun, which is why she uses a play-based approach to support children in meeting their speech and language goals.

With a calm and reassuring communication style, Lauren takes the time to truly understand each child’s unique needs and strengths. Her approach is neurodivergent-affirming, strength-based and trauma- informed, ensuring every child is seen and celebrated for who they are.

Lauren has a special interest in working with children across a variety of areas, including early language development, school-age language, articulation, situational mutism, and literacy.

When Lauren is not in therapy sessions, you’ll find her baking up sweet treats, exploring new destinations, or enjoying quality time with her two fur babies, Arnold and Lucy.

Lauren is deeply committed to fostering genuine connections with families and collaborating with other health professionals to provide the best care possible.

Lauren lives by the mantra, “Nobody is you, and that is your power.” She believes every child has their own unique voice, and it’s her privilege to help them find it.

Lauren provides home visits around the Point Cook area, and sees kids at the Sum of Us Kids on Mondays. Send us a DM if you’d love for Lauren to work with your child :)

13/10/2024

11/10/2024

Hi, I’m Lisa. I am a Mental Health OT with over 15 years experience specialising in neurodiversity and mental health presentations across the lifespan.

I love working collaboratively with clients and their families to develop meaningful goals to improve quality of life, education outcomes and community participation. I enjoy working with kids from primary school age to young adults. 

I’m based at the Sum of Us Kids Therapy Hub on Fridays and I currently have some limited session availability. If you’d like to find out more, send us a DM and we’ll get in touch :)

02/10/2024

Hi, I’m Brendan – a neurodivergent paediatric counsellor with an integrative approach involving a mixture of cognitive, behavioural and play therapies with an interest in sensory integration and individual profiles.
 
Playfulness is a value that I rate highly and play is a fundamental skill that provides complex psycho-social development. From building towards complex social interactions, the understanding of perspective and abstract and flexible thinking – play is essential in building interest that allows for the development of both cognitive and emotionally intelligent, capable little people.
 
I have experience with quite a wide range of presentations, the following being personal interests and specialities:
* ADHD
* Autism
* PDA Presentation
* Anxiety
* Developmental Delays
* Trauma
* Parenting
* Non-speaking & significant speech delays
 
If you feel like your child is chaos incarnate, chances are we will both have incredible fun together!
 
I am a huge nerd – with a love for video, board and roleplaying games. But also an extensive personal knowledge and interest in physical fitness (I can bore you with all of these subjects in an information dump). The greatest thing I can do in my work with children is just providing space and safety to listen and notice. My greatest superpower is never burning rice.
 
If you are wondering how I might help or what role I might play – please send us a DM.

20/08/2024

I am pleased to confirm that our next Speech Pathology Neurodiversity Affirming Practice SIG presentation will be from Tim Chan, who is a non-speaking Autistic advocate. Tim will be presenting on the following topic:

'Communication in Minimally/Non-Speaking Autistics: Neurobiological and Psychological Differences in Social Contexts’

If you’d like to join the SIG and attend Tim’s presentation in September (via Zoom), send me a DM and I can send some more info :)

19/08/2024

Our experienced psychologist, Melissa Damin, has availability now for:

- Cognitive Assessments
- Educational Assessments
- Autism Assessments
- ADHD Assessments
- Dyslexia Assessments

If you’d like to book in your child in for an assessment with Melissa, feel free to drop me a DM and I will send you some more info :)

05/08/2024

We’re excited to announce that the team at (based at Sum of Us Kids) have availability for hydrotherapy sessions between Yarraville and Werribee 💦💦💦

Sessions can take place at a pool of your choice.

Our physios will help your child work on water safety & confidence, gross motor skills for land-based goals, and swimming-specific goals.

Education is provided to parents/caregivers and support workers to
implement hydrotherapy activities in daily life.

If you’d like some more info about hydrotherapy for your child, feel free to send me a DM ☺️

31/07/2024

We're very excited to be offering LEGO® Based Therapy Groups here at the Hub in Yarraville.

LEGO® Based Therapy is an engaging play based group that can support your child’s social and communication development. LEGO® Based Therapy can help children to enhance their problem solving abilities and foster concentration and critical thinking skills. This program can also promote development of fine motor skills, and improved emotional and sensory awareness. Another key benefit of the group is that it supports children to develop relationship building skills and learn about the strengths and skills of themselves and others.

LEGO® Based Therapy is open to children aged 4 to 10 years of age with a diverse range of needs. The program consists of 8 one hour LEGO® Based Therapy sessions, as well as a parent intake, child observation and two parent review sessions.

If you'd like more info, feel free to send me a DM with your email and I'll get in touch :)

15/07/2024

Do you have a child struggling with School Can’t? Do you have professionals in your life who need information on Home Education?

We have TWO FREE upcoming Webinars this month.

You are welcome to come to both, whether you are a parent or a professional.

If you have any professionals involved with your family that would like to know more about home education, this upcoming session may be useful to them. Feel free to share the registration link with them.
https://www.trybooking.com/CTIMZ

School Can't Webinar Booking link https://www.trybooking.com/CTIMW

01/07/2024

26/06/2024

I'm super excited to announce that Stuttering Advocate, Ezra Horak, will be presenting for our next Neurodiversity Affirming Practice Special Interest Group, in July. If you're a Speechie would like to attend Ezra's presentation and join the SIG, feel free to send me a DM ☀

28/03/2024

Embracing the chaos of dysregulation can be tricky! It means seeing it not as a flaw but as a way your child communicates. Instead of labelling dysregulation as a problem, try and understand it as your child’s unique expression.

When you start to shift your perspective, you may be better able to respond to your child’s needs.

Rather than trying to fix it, try to focus on understanding the messages behind the dysregulation and providing support.

By embracing the messiness, you can honour the complexity of your child’s emotions and validate their individual ways of expressing themselves.

By embracing dysregulation as a form of communication, you can open up space for genuine connection, healing, and growth between you and your child.

If you would like to have a better understanding of your child’s emotional well-being and what their behaviours may be trying to communicate, drop us a DM to chat with our paediatric art therapist, Rain Ali.

You can check out Rain’s full blog at the link in our bio 👆

27/03/2024

If you have concerns about your child and would like to have them assessed ASAP, we might be able to help.

Our speechies can provide the following assessments:
* Receptive and Expressive Language
* Speech Sound Development
* Pragmatic Language Assessments (as part of autism diagnosis)
* Literacy

Our psychologists can provide the following assessments:

* Cognitive Assessments
* Educational Assessments
* Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) Assessments
* Dyslexia Diagnostic Assessments
* Dysgraphia Diagnostic Assessments
* Autism Diagnostic Assessments
* ADHD Diagnostic Assessments

If you’re interested in finding out more, drop me a DM and I can send you some further info about booking in :)

Please note that unfortunately we currently don’t have availability for ongoing speech or psychology 1:1 therapy.

20/03/2024

Are you finding it hard to find a speech pathologist in your area? Our director and speech pathologist, Becky Kidd, is happy to announce that she’s now providing online NDIS review assessments for kids all over Australia.

Book online @ link in bio 👆

19/02/2024

For many transgender people, aligning their voice with their gender identity is an essential aspect of their transition process. This is where gender-affirming speech pathology can play a vital role, and we are super excited to have Speechie, Shevaun Pope, on the team, who specialises in this area.

Gender dysphoria is the distress experienced when one’s assigned gender at birth does not align with their true gender identity. This disconnect can manifest in various ways, including vocal dysphoria. Vocal dysphoria refers to the discomfort or distress individuals may feel regarding their voice, often due to its perceived incongruence with their gender identity. Transgender people may feel that their voice outs them or exposes them to potential misgendering, leading to anxiety and a reluctance to speak.

Gender-affirming speech pathology is a specialised branch of speech therapy that focuses on helping transgender individuals modify their voice to better align with their gender identity. This can include providing:
* Assessment
* Voice Modification Techniques including pitch modulation, resonance training, articulation and intonation.
* Empowerment and Support

If you would like to speak with our Speech Pathologist, Shevaun, about gender affirming speech pathology for yourself or your teenager, please drop us a DM or contact her via


+SpeechPathology

23/12/2023

Thanks for your wisdom Onwards and Upwards Psychology 🎄😊

Thinking of you this holiday season. ❤️

21/12/2023

Christmas can be an anxious time for neurodivergent kids for plenty of reasons. Opening presents can be one of them.

If this document looks useful to you, you can grab it as a free download on TPT. Print it off, fill it in with your kid, hand it to friends and relatives. I hope it makes things a little bit smoother.

Here’s the link.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-to-my-adults-about-present-opening-Christmas-10694255

Let me know if you find it useful.
Feel free to share it.

Em 🌈