Helping Children with Autism

After a fairly extensive process, as of Tuesday, 27th October, 5energies is now officially a panel / service provider under the auspices of the Helping Children with Autism Package. This package is run through Autism Australia, with federal funding from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that we are a ‘one stop’ shop, one which offers Speech Pathology, Occupational Therapy, Educational Psychology and education services under the one roof. As this package of funding is after an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach for children with autism, it seems we fit the bill!!

So very proudly we announce our new status as Panel provider for services relating to autism, but also advise that we will be continuing our quality services for any child with a learning delay or developmental challenge. It has already been a big week, with those who have heard whispers on the wind getting in fast for appointments, and screenings and program development taking place this week.

It goes without question that if anyone wishes any information on our services to children and their families, please just ring and chat to Julie in the front office.

Website Woes!

Oh dear… Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men actually do unravel and come astray. We were under the impression that our Order form for the newly launched literacy package, and our contact form were in working order – but nope, sorry, not to be. Thank you to the couple of people who contacted us about it, and we ‘think’ it is now OK.

On another note, we are very sad at 5energies to be leaving our favourite web guru Leah, at workingsolo.com… Fortunately for Leah she is going to be enjoying a lot more of life over the next few weeks, months and years, and is looking forward to many wonderful ambulatory strolls through her neighbhourhood and elsewhere, but we are so going to miss having her quiet support in the background of our web presence. Leah, thank you for your wonderful ability to translate our murky ideas into reality, and for helping us immensely as a growing business.

On that note, the website will be migrating to a new hosting service over the next week, so if for any reason, you experience difficulties, please return in an hour or so.

A Concern – from one teacher to another…

Through the week, I had the good fortune of meeting Leslie, Simon and young Peter (see my recent posting for parents). What concerned me was how powerless Leslie and Simon felt about their son, and what conflicting advice they had been getting from their son’s school. Fortunately someone they trusted had suggested they bite the bullet and see if young Peter had any issues, or whether  his issues were maturational. What good advice!  As it turned out, Peter’s issues were developmental, and in some areas of gross and fine motor skills he was significantly delayed – and a good Occupational Therapist can work with him and likely achieve good results within a relatively short time span.

However, it was of concern that a teacher at the school told them to wait for a year or two and see what happens. I am a teacher of long-standing, and I know that our experiences with so many children can lead us to conclude that most children will improve over time. My concern is that sometimes we are wrong. Since working so intensively with speech pathologists and occupational therapists, my advice has now changed significantly – for the sake of a screening / consultation wtih health professionals, it might be better to find out NOW if a child has developmental delays. As teachers, we might be education experts – but we are not the masters of every health care domain, and sometimes it is good to ask for expert assistance early. Peter’s issues can be resolved relatively easily now, as he is young enough to benefit greatly from an intensive programme helping his development. Had his parents waited till he was failing magnificently at age 8, a time when concrete learning moves into a more theoretical framework, a similar story might not be told.

Please consider what you say to parents. Please consider that there are other professionals who also have a vested interest in optimising each child’s development. Please consider that a problem today just might not go away in two years time – and in fact, might have grown to such significance that there is little hope of overcoming it.

The Launch of In the Garden!

What a fantastic conference we attended on the weekend! The Consult and Collaborate Joint Conference is now over for another year, but what a time we had! As satchel sponsors, we were overwhelmed with the support that we got from conference participants. Mind you, perhaps the free highlighters and traffic lights were also enjoyed by conference participants too!

The launch of the In the Garden Literacy Package was attended by some 75 conference participants, and there was overwhelming support for our new, innovative and Australian Literacy Package.  Thank you to the MANY teachers who visited our stand, and who were generous in their praise for the package itself, but also for what 5energies is trying to do. The conference itself could not have run more smoothly – many of the presentations were very thought-provoking, the discussions and conversations were interesting, and the food was exemplary!

Over the next couple of days, I will be posting some more photos of the conference so you can see how wonderful the conference was. The information about the Conference special, for purchase of the In the Garden series, is now posted in the Resources section of the website as well. Please contact us if you want more information on this wonderful literacy package!

Consult and Collaborate Joint Conference 2009

What an exciting time we are having!  We are in preparation for the Consult and Collaborate Joint Conference 2009 at the Brisbane Conference Centre on the 18th and 19th September and we are almost leaping and squealing with excitement! It is our honour to be satchel sponsors – but what we are exceptionally excited about is the launch of our In the Garden Literacy Package!

Filled with innovative and exciting resources for teachers, this package is not just the culmination of hard work, but an absolute celebration of the value of dedicated and committed professionals collaborating to create a resource of best practice across so many domains. We will be thanking the wonderful people who have collaborated with us – from Sarah Amies (Author and illustrator), Anne-Maree Garcia (Multi-media guru), Patrick Mitchell (narrator and story-teller),  Tina Kriedemann (The Purple Jam Studio / Brisbane), Angie Sublime (Sublime Music Studio/ Brisbane) and Iris Wesling (St. Eugene Catholic College, Burpengary),  these people have given blood, sweat and tears to make this launch on Friday a spectacular success.

The Literacy Package consists of 7 in the Garden student texts, a Big Book, some visual processing Mystery Sheets, a CD of music suitable for assembly items (and tapping into another sensory learning pathway), a DVD of supported reading modes, and a teacher resource book, jam-packed with black-line masters, strategies and activities suitable for develping higher-order thinking. What can I say? We are justifiably proud of it, and hope many of you are able to join us at the launch.

Hopefully we will also see many of you at the conference – we are just so excited about being there and renewing friendships with those who attended the last conference – and meeting new conference participants.

What an exciting time!

What a busy, and exciting time we have been having.

Over the next few days I will be posting some photos of the recording session that Alex and I were involved in on Friday, at good friend Angie’s studio. Tina, another good friend,  (from The Purple Jam Music Studio – link below) was also there – Tina and Angie have written the music and provided the technical support as we develop a package of goodies to go with our ‘in the Garden’ texts which were published last year. This is an exciting time – the package will be launched in mid-September, so keep watching this space! 

The new learning calendar is up as well, with more training going ahead in July, for teachers, teaching assistants and childcare workers. So take a look if you are interested.

www.thepurplejam.musicteaching.info 

Election in Queensland

Election results in Queensland are in, and no doubt there will be some sore heads somewhere, considering the successes and failures of the election process. Regardless of who won or lost, at 5energies, we are hoping that someone in government begins to look locally, asks us for our research supporting children with learning delays, and begins to focus on local efforts to assist these children.

I have been told that the Federal Government is bringing in the Canadian Social Development Index, which gives a good amount of information on each Prep child. However, it still does not assess the underlying factors that impinge upon a child’s ability to learn. THESE are important to us at 5energies and we have the success rate to prove it at the learning consultancy. At the risk of sounding like strong activists, we are sincerely hoping that those within the education department and within government, begin to talk to us about our training programmes for teachers, and how we can genuinely help children with learning delays. We are in four schools now and the results from those schools have been stunning… and all because of the commitment of teachers, their understanding of the factors underpinning learning and their willingness to include more apppropriate strategies in their daily teaching.

In the meantime, congratulations to those members of Parliament who have won the election, and we hope you take your responsibilities to your constituents very seriously, including those children who are experiencing developmental delays and need assistance now. These are the voters of the future…

5e will SHINE in 2009!

Nothing like a good motto to get the blood stirring, is there?

After some indepth discussions recently about the directions of 5energies for the next year, Alexandra and I have chosen as our motto – ‘5e will SHINE in 2009!!’. A friend of mine speaks often about her selection of a key word for the year, and how her creative energies focus on making that word a reality – so our key word is ’shine’.

We have been working hard for the past three years to make our vision a reality, but to be honest, we have probably only twinkled at times, as getting a business up and running is not for the faint of heart. There has been so little time to share our message broadly, but that will change this year. Yup, we don’t just want to twinkle and provide a faint light to our door for those children with learning challenges – we want to shine! We want to convince the world that our message of early identification and assistance to these children is not only worthwhile in the short and long term, but essential for our future as a country. How marvellous to think that a future Prime Minister might be attending 5energies right now! Or the future CEOs of our leading companies? Or leading academics in areas of expertise we cannot even visualise right now…

So – this year? Yup, we aim to SHINE in 2009!!  If you have a key word, we would be interested in hearing how you plan your 2009.

Excitement in the Air!

There is a sense of excitement in the air at 5energies! Yesterday the first Basic training for 2009 began, with a new group of talented, enthusiastic teachers giving up their holiday time to train in the 5energies model. This surely indicates the commitment that teachers have towards improving their professional practices, but also optimising opportunities for their learners.  What is exciting from our perspective though, is the amount of laughter and enjoyment, and the willingness of these teachers to contribute their expertise to make the professional discussions so much richer.

As the presenters, Alex and I find these training sessions so exciting – the potential within their schools to create change is so immense! The exchange of information between professions is also so empowering – each time I listen to Alex, as a very experienced speech pathologist, I learn something new. We also have our first trainer coming online too – this is a person who has been working in the 5energies model for the past two years, and is now embarking on the journey to become a qualified trainer. Now that is exciting too!

We will be putting the new learning calendar up in the next few days, so if you are interested in the next Basic Training sessions, please contact the office for more information.

Happy 2009!

Where has 2008 gone? How could we be in the last hours of an entire year? The end of the old year is a good time for a small bit of reflection, so here goes.

Thank you to those teachers who have supported 5energies – meeting you over the past two years has been an honour and privilege for Alexandra, me and the whole team at 5energies. Sometimes it is a thankless task being a teacher – how we have enjoyed hearing your stories, helping you to be more knowledgeable teachers, and hearing about the changes you have made in your classrooms. You are inspiring, and we thank you for inspiring us to do even more.

Thank you to those principals, senior teachers and coordinators who have made our job so much easier. You have welcomed us into your schools, and we have enjoyed seeing how hard you are all working to improve outcomes for children, particularly those with learning delays.

And thank you to other staff within each of the schools. There is a school admin person in one school who always smiles, welcomes us back and smooths the way for us. 

So enjoy your bit of a break, have many coffees with friends, and look forward to another exciting year. Our first Basic Training takes place in mid-January, and 2009 is looking like being exciting and full of even more 5energies!!! Yippee!! Happy New Year!!

Next Page »