Our approach to therapy

Our therapy

Our therapists assess and analyse children’s movements using the Bobath Clinical Reasoning Framework and the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health. All our therapists are trained in the Bobath concept which is an internationally recognised approach for children and young adults with all types of cerebral palsy regardless of severity, age or accompanying disabilities. Using this clinical framework, our highly qualified physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists work closely together, allowing us to look at your child’s needs holistically and draw on all the evidence based therapies available.

This enables us to plan the most appropriate therapy for your child at our centre, always with the main aim of increasing your child’s abilities, which may range from walking better, to baking cakes or breathing more efficiently.

Play is a very important part of therapy and often your child may not realise they are having therapy as they are ’just having fun’ whilst building confidence in themselves. We measure your child’s progress through joint goal setting (discussing what you and your child would like to achieve), standardised outcome measures, therapist observations and structured feedback forms.

A family centred approach has always been the focus of our service, and families are very involved in the therapy sessions. We like to spend time getting to know you and your child, listening to your concerns and problem solving around them. We want to make sure that you as a family and those who care for your child know how best to help your child, whether at home or school. We are always very happy to have extended family members, your local therapy team or school staff, join in our sessions. You, and your child’s team (medical, therapy and educational) are provided with a full report and therapy programme at the end of your child’s therapy sessions.

A wider perspective

The Bobath approach works well with the ICF and together provide our clinical reasoning framework, which forms the basis of our interventions. Over time other approaches have been shown to work well with certain types of cerebral palsy so we incorporate those into our therapy in order to get the best outcomes for each child. Measuring the outcomes of each intervention and asking for your feedback helps us to monitor the service to make sure we are providing an effective, family-centred service.

Early intervention

Our focus is very much on early intervention. Research shows that the earlier a child who has, or is suspected of having, cerebral palsy receives specialist therapy, the greater the impact on the child’s future outcomes. Because of this, the majority of our resources go towards the treatment of babies aged from birth to 2 1/2 through our early intervention service, Better Start, Better Future. We then see children a year later when they are 3.

Where resources allow, we see older children up to the age of 18.

a therapist sat on the floor with a mum and her baby