At Real Disability Care we have had some exciting changes to our team of staff, a departure but many additions and much growth that can only benefit our clients.

Amanda Wood, our Principal Psychologist of course continues to supervise all the team members and oversee and support all the care and services provided by Real Disability care. As a Board Approved Supervisor she provides fortnightly clinical supervisions to all staff in the area of supporting children and adults with a disability or autism and ensuring as team we continue to provide high quality, evidence based and practical interventions and support.

We would like to congratulate Nadia Azzopardi who has now completed all 6 years required to become Fully Registered as a Psychologist (yes 6 years full time it takes!!!). Her expertise, knowledge and practical yet innovative way of working is a great asset to our team and the people she supports. Not done yet she is hoping to move forward to gain her Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology, whilst continuing to work with us of course.

Rhianna Wynters is our Provisional Psychologist who will be providing Behaviour Intervention and Support, as a Provisional Psychologist and qualified applied behaviour therapist Rhianna has the knowledge and practical skills to provide positive Behaviour Support as well as psychometric, diagnostic assessments and Psychological Interventions. We are excited to announce we are expanding out multidisciplinary team to include an Occupational Therapist and a Clinical Nurse Consultant!!

Carmel Poulter is our new Occupational therapist you can read more about Carmel on the Our Team page. We are extremely excited to have an experienced Occupational therapist especially one to work with sensory issues and autism/ developmental disabilities.

Our Clinical Nurse Consultant Lisa Craig is a wealth of knowledge and practical skills and experience again you read more about her at the our Team Page. Lisa has worked with many organisations and individuals provided health care advocacy, navigating through the health care system for people with a disability and conducting health care plans to ensure positive health outcomes for people with a disability.

Speech Pathologist – we are currently finalising our recruitment for a speech Pathologists and although we cant give out the details of this person yet we are very excited to soon have a qualified and highly experienced Speech Pathologist who has spent years supporting people with a disability amongst our team

Why is a Multi disciplinary team Important?

Multidisciplinary care occurs when professionals from a range of disciplines (including Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology and Nursing) with different but complementary skills, knowledge and experience work together to deliver comprehensive clinical care. Through the expertise from these different professionals the team are able to conduct holistic assessments and interventions that address all aspects of a person life, their strengths and the areas they need support and interventions

Through a multidisciplinary approach as a clients needs may change with time, the composition of the team may also change to meet these needs.

Research has found consistently that a strong culture of multidisciplinary care is seen as critical to improving the primary healthcare of Australia, it is even more important for effective outcomes for people with a disability. To the point that Early Intervention requires multidisciplinary teams to diagnose and provide interventions to children with Autism and Disabilities. It is also highly likely that NDIA will follow this research and past experiences of Early Intervention policy and practices and require a multidisciplinary approach for adults with a disability to be funded by NDIS.

The other advantage of a multidisciplinary team is that we all work together in the one place – with your consent we are able to work collaboratively to ensure all clinical care is consistent. For example the Occupational therapist and Psychologist can work together to provide a complete intervention to reduce behaviours that are triggered by sensory avoidance behaviours. Behaviour was never meant to be addressed in isolation of the person has a whole, with a multidisciplinary team we can ensure that this does not occur.

What’s more you no longer need to contact 3 different services, attend multiple offices or book multiple appointments for on site visits we can organise all your support needs just with one phone call to our offices on 1300 725 961.

At Real Disability Care we believe there a few important things to check, before hiring services.

• Are the organisations values similar to my own?
• Does the service have extensive experience working with people with a Disability?
• Are all the professionals qualified in their relevant area of discipline? Are they members of their affiliated associations for example Australian Heath Practitioners regulation Association?
• What supervision and support do the clinicians receive?
• Is there access to Occupational Therapists, Speech Pathologists and Psychologists and do they work closely together to meet the needs of individuals?
• Does the service comply with positive behaviour support principles?
• Does the service base their therapy on evidence-based practice? (that is, have the interventions been proven effective through research)
• Who will provide the service? What are their qualifications and experience?