Making therapy accessible and affordable for all
Supported by:
Executive summary
Therapy at Home by The Play Way is a team of Allied Health Professionals, Educators, and IT experts based in rural Victoria who have developed and successfully deployed a digital health platform supporting over 6,000 Australian children with developmental delays and autism since 2020.
Our evidence-informed platform directly addresses the Thriving Kids initiative’s objectives by:
- Empowering early accessible parent-led assessment tools embedded in engaging programs.
- Delivering holistic supports that integrate into daily routines across home, childcare, and school settings.
- Building capacity in children, families, and the workforce to support developmental outcomes.
- Ensuring equity through digital delivery that eliminates geographical, financial, and systemic barriers.
- Strengthening relationships between children and their caregivers through play-based, strengths-focused interventions.
- Supporting seamless transitions through mainstream systems with continuity of approach.
OUR DATA DEMONSTRATES
- 95.3% parent satisfaction
- 84.4% ability improvements
- National reach
OUR CHALLENGE
Despite proven effectiveness, current funding frameworks have stalled this innovation. Thriving Kids presents an opportunity to pioneer sustainable models for digital early intervention that recognise both technological platforms and tangible engagement tools as essential components of effective support.
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WHO WE ARE
Our Story
Our innovative therapy model began as a response to the growing crisis in early childhood intervention access. As experienced allied health professionals working in rural Victoria, we witnessed families and clinicians facing:
- 6-24 month wait times for assessments and interventions.
- Limited access to experienced providers in regional areas.
- Children missing critical early intervention windows.
- Parents feeling overwhelmed and unsupported.
- High service delivery costs and extensive travel requirements.
When COVID-19 forced closure of in-person services in 2020, we rapidly pivoted to create what would become Therapy at Home - a hybrid digital health platform paired with physical toolboxes delivered to families’ homes.
What started as an emergency response revealed something profound:
Children and their families thrived when given the tools, knowledge, and agency to truly engage in their own supported developmental journey in their natural environments.
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WHO WE ARE
Our Team
We are a multidisciplinary team bringing together:
Occupational Therapists (20+ years clinical experience).
Speech Pathologists (20+ years clinical experience).
Psychologists (20+ years clinical experience).
Behaviour Support Practitioners (20+ years experience).
Educators (20+ years experience in early childhood and primary settings).
Graphic Designers (creating accessible, engaging visual supports).
IT Developers (building robust, user-friendly digital platforms).
Each program we create draws on thousands of face-to-face, telehealth, and parent coaching interventions our team has conducted, combined with current evidence-informed best practice guidelines.
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OUR MISSION
To deliver a scalable, evidence-informed digital platform that supports families and those working with them to access the tools and education they need to build capacity and develop the skills and confidence that enable them to thrive.
We are on a mission to make therapy more accessible and affordable for all Australian families.
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WHAT WE DO
Our Digital Health Platform
- Reduces barriers to access for all families no matter their geographical, financial, or ecological needs.
- Upskills and empowers parents to support their children in their natural environment through simple, flexible, and customisable evidence-informed strategies designed to integrate into their daily routines.
- Keeps it fun and focused on foundational child development principles to cultivate healthy habits, with child and family choice and control at the centre.
- Increases the capacity of the workforce supporting families through access to training, resources, and tools to support the families they work with, at scale without impacting on quality.
- Enables a more affordable workforce of professionals equipped to support families on the ground, enabling Allied Health Professionals to work at the top of their scope, reducing program delivery costs and wait times.
- Creates continuity, ease of communication, and collaboration across services by ensuring everyone has access to the child’s portal so the whole care team stays involved and up to date on the child/parent’s goals, intervention strategies, and outcomes.
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WHO WE ARE
Our Approach is
- Strengths-based: Focusing on what children CAN do, building confidence and agency.
- Play-based: Using children’s interests and intrinsic motivation to enhance participation and bringing together tools and training for maximum engagement.
- Evidence-informed: Grounded in best practice research and refined through clinical experience.
- Holistic: Addressing all foundations of child development: sleep, routines, self-care, feeding, emotional regulation, behaviour, communication, motor skills, social skills.
- Relationship-focused: Strengthening parent-child bonds through shared, safe, and connected experiences.
- Empowering: Giving children a sense of agency and families the confidence to support their child’s development.
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HOW WE DO IT
The Platform
Our platform, a mobile friendly learning management system, contains:
| System | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Evidence-Based Programs Focusing on all areas of child development. |
- Sleep and bedtime routines - Toileting and self-care - Feeding and mealtimes - Daily routines and transitions - Emotional regulation - Behaviour support - Speech and language development - Motor skills (fine and gross) - Social skills and play - Executive functioning |
| 2. Multi-Sensory Training Content | - Video demonstrations using simple language and modeling. - Visual supports (schedules, communication cards, step-by-step visual instructions). - Written guides and workbooks for facilitators. - Audio content and closed captions for accessibility. |
| 3. Training for Support Networks | - Upskills both the child AND those working with them. - Professional Learning Programs for daycare centers and educational settings. - All programs are accessible and relevant to support workers, allied health assistants, grandparents - containing video and printed training materials. |
| 4. Assessment and Monitoring Tools | - Self-assessment checklists to identify lagging skills. - Progress monitoring tools. - Outcome measures. - Goal-setting frameworks. |
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| System | Description |
|---|---|
| 5. Individualised Portals | - Store assessment tools, outcome measures (based on COPM), and reports. - Monitor engagement and progress over time. - Share clients across the care team for collaborative, integrated support. - Enable continuity through cohesive supports - everyone working towards the same goals, at the same time, in the same ways. |
| 6. Physical Resources | - Downloadable visual supports (print at home). - Optional physical toolboxes containing carefully curated resources that: - Reduce barriers to engagement. - Build real skills, in real time for real life. - Support inclusion and explore appropriate accommodations. - Increase child motivation and family participation. - Empower rural/remote and low socioeconomic families to access therapy resources in the way they would in a clinic. |
| 7. Professional Development and Community | - Training webinars and live sessions. - Professional networking chat feature. - Parent community support feature. - Scheduled educational content delivery. |
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HOW WE DO IT
How This Creates Integration and Continuity
Our platform enables holistic, integrated supports by:
- Involving the whole care team - therapists, educators, support workers, and family all access the same portal.
- Clearly defining goals in one central, accessible platform.
- Ensuring consistency across home, childcare, and school environments.
- Reducing service duplication through shared visibility of supports.
- Tailoring to individual needs while maintaining evidence-based approaches.
- Supporting therapists to work at top of scope through delegation of implementation to trained support networks.
This model aligns with the National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention by ensuring children receive consistent, family-centered, outcomes-focused support across all environments where they live, learn, and play.
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WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED
Demonstrated Impact
| Metric | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Children and Families Supported | 6,000+ across Australia |
| Programs Delivered | 21,196 individual programs delivered in 2024 alone |
| Geographic Reach | All states and territories, including remote communities |
| Family Satisfaction | 95.3% reported being satisfied with their program |
| Measured Ability Improvement | 84.4% of children showed improvement their ability as a result of participation in a program |
| Outcome Reports Completed | 1,589 comprehensive outcome reports delivered |
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WHO WE HELP
Stakeholder Benefits
| Metric | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Children | - Develop sense of agency through choice and self-paced learning. - Build capacity to regulate behaviour through emotion and sensory strategies. - Strengthen skills and confidence in daily living activities. - Learn through play and interests (intrinsic motivation). - Develop strong relationships with caregivers through shared activities. - Experience success in their natural environment. - Avoid stigma of clinic-based “therapy.” |
| Parents and Caregivers | - Strengthen knowledge, skills, and confidence to support child development. - Access immediate support (no wait times) - Learn at their own pace in their own language - Receive holistic supports addressing multiple developmental areas - Build stronger relationships with child through positive interactions - Reduce overwhelm through simple, step-by-step guidance - Connect with peer community for support - Afford quality intervention (fraction of traditional therapy costs) |
| Community Services | - Maternal & Child Health nurses can prescribe evidence-based supports. - GPs have referral pathway beyond “wait for specialist.” |
- Playgroups and support workers access relevant and practical training to support development.
- Services coordinate through shared platform reducing duplication.
- Measure population-level outcomes across service systems. |
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| Metric | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Allied Health Clinicians/Key Workers | - Work at top of scope (assessment, planning, monitoring) rather than direct delivery. - Support exponentially more families through program prescription. - Access outcome data to inform clinical decisions. - Collaborate across disciplines through shared portals. - Reduce administrative burden (resources pre-created). - Extend reach to regional/remote families. - Maintain continuity between sessions through family implementation. |
| Educators & Early Childhood Settings | - Implement consistent strategies aligned with home supports. - Access training on developmental delay and disability. - Support integration of children with additional needs. - Strengthen capacity to identify developmental concerns early. - Reduce need for 1:1 aides through environmental strategies. - Develop strong relationships with families through shared approach. - Access visual supports and resources immediately. |
| Government & Funders | - Cost-effective model. - Scalable to meet demand without workforce constraints. - Measurable outcomes demonstrate value for money. - Reduces NDIS/specialist service demand. - Addresses equity (regional, CALD, low SES access). - Supports workforce development and capacity building. - Enables data-driven policy decisions. |
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Terms of Reference
Our model directly addresses each of the inquiry’s Terms of Reference in the following table:.
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TERMS OF REFERENCE
| Term | Addresses |
|---|---|
| 1. Early Identification and Parent Support | - Embedded assessment tools, checklists and education to help parents identify developmental concerns. - Multi-sensory resources (video, visual, written, audio) ensure accessibility for diverse families. - Evidence-based content developed from thousands of clinical interventions. - Immediate action rather than “wait and see.” |
- Digital ready audience of parents and providers. |
| 2. Effective Community and Mainstream Integration | - Reduces wait times from 6-12 months to immediate access.
- Eliminates geographic barriers through digital delivery.
- Costs fraction of traditional therapy.
- Integrates seamlessly with existing services; AHP’s, MCH nurses, GPs, playgroups, ECEC, and schools.
- Enables allied health professionals to work at top of scope, supporting more families.
- Creates consistency across home, childcare, and school environments. | | 3. Equity and Inclusion | - Geographic equity: Successfully reaches remote communities (NT, WA, rural QLD/NSW/VIC).
- Financial accessibility: Cost-effective model when appropriately funded.
- Format accessibility: Visual-heavy content partially mitigates language barriers/learning difficulties.
- Co-design opportunities with First Nations communities for cultural safety.
- Translation option for CALD families (priority languages: Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Hindi). |
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| Term | Addresses |
|---|---|
| 4. Workforce Development | - Upskills parents, educators, support workers, and allied health assistants through structured training. - Enables therapists to supervise broader workforce, multiplying effectiveness. - Addresses critical allied health shortage by reducing 1:1 delivery dependency. - Provides scalable training infrastructure for MCH nurses, GPs, ECEC educators. - Creates consistent, evidence-based approaches across diverse workforce skill levels. |
| 5. Best Practice Alignment | - Embodies all National Best Practice Framework principles: family-centered, strengths-based, outcome-focused, natural environments, capacity-building, integration, holistic supports. - Children develop sense of agency through choice and self-paced learning. - Strengthens relationships through play-based shared family activities. - Builds capacity to regulate behaviour through neuroaffirming teaching and modeling. - Strengthens knowledge, skills, and confidence in both children and caregivers. |
| 6. Seamless Transitions | - Shared digital portal ensures continuity across services (MCH → GP → ECEC → School). - Portal allows all stakeholder to view parent/child led goals and their intervention plans creating continuity across the care team and includes the ability to monitor outcomes reducing the need for parents to relay data and information between providers. - Same strategies used in all settings (home, childcare, school). - No information loss during transitions; whole care team accesses same record. |
With 6,000+ families already having benefited from this comprehensive and innovative approach, The Play Way provides Thriving Kids with a proven, scalable model that addresses each of the terms of reference - not as aspiration, but as demonstrated reality.
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Recommendations
If funded appropriately, The Play Way model demonstrates that Thriving Kids can:
- Provide immediate access to evidence-based supports (eliminating 6-24 month wait times).
- Reach every Australian family regardless of geography (including remote communities).
- Deliver measurable outcomes at scale (95.3% satisfaction, 84.4% ability improvement).
- Multiply workforce effectiveness through capacity-building model.
- Achieve cost-effectiveness (fraction of traditional therapy costs).
- Ensure equity through universal design and targeted cultural adaptation.
- Create seamless continuity across the early childhood ecosystem.
- Build long-term family capacity reducing reliance on ongoing professional supports.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
The Play Way stands ready to:
- Integrate our digital platform into existing community based services.
- Partner with government or relevant stakeholders in Thriving Kids implementation.
- Share our platform, data, and learnings to inform program design.
- Work alongside relevant stakeholders to utilise the platform and existing content to Train the Thriving Kids workforce.
- Participate in pilots and evaluations.
- Co-design with First Nations and CALD communities.
We are committed to ensuring every Australian child with mild to moderate developmental delays and/or autism has access to timely, evidence-informed, family-centered supports that enable them to reach their full potential.
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