Child Development Service

Entrance to the Child Development Service based at Montreal House, 440 Montreal Street, Christchurch

At the Child Development Service, we see tamariki/ children with developmental needs and disabilities from birth through to their 16^th birthday. We strive to work in partnership with parents, caregivers and whānau to support your child's development and allow your tamaiti and whānau to participate in life’s activities.

The Child Development Service team is an allied health team based at Montreal House in Christchurch and covers a wide geographical area from Kekerengu (north of Kaikoura) to the Rangitata River (south of Ashburton), inland to the Alps and includes the Chatham Islands. We see tamariki with a range of conditions such as; 

• 

  Child Development Service courtyard playground

  Cerebral Palsy,
• Delayed development,
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD),
• Trisomy 21 (down syndrome),
• Neuromuscular disorders and syndromes with developmental delays.
• We also see children under 12 months with a suspected or diagnosed Torticollis.

Our team provides assessment and intervention for this group of tamariki which may include:

• parent information sessions
• therapy support
• post-operative therapy
• Enable NZ (Whaikaha funding provider) applications for 
  • home equipment: including bathing/showering, walking frames, standing frames, beds/mattresses 
  • wheelchairs/seating and car seats, lying supports
  • housing modifications
• hydrotherapy 
• orthotics assessment 

The Child Development Service team at Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury includes a range of allied health professionals who work with the tamariki and whānau accessing our service. Your tamaiti might receive support from one person in our team or several, depending on their needs. This could include support from:

• Our Physiotherapists work collaboratively with tamarki and whānau to support motor development and participation in activities and improve quality of life.  

• Our Occupational Therapists work with tamariki and whānau around the development of day-to-day life skills, fine motor skill development and provide sensory processing education and support.

• Our Social Worker supports parents/ whānau / caregivers in meeting their own needs and challenges while caring for a child with developmental needs. 

• Our Speech Language Therapist works with whānau to assess and support swallowing safety and skill. 

• Our Dietitian role is to work with whānau to assess and provide interventions to support the nutritional needs of tamariki with enteral feeding needs, restrictive eating, or faltering growth.

• Our Kaitautoko engages with Māori whānau referred to the Child Development Service.

• Our Psychology team complete assessments for consideration of Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Intellectual Disability diagnosis.

• Our Allied Health Assistants/ Kaiāwhina, support our clinicians in their work with tamariki and whānau. This could include providing support with individual intervention plans for tamariki, providing group or 1:1 parent information session’s, supporting with running clinics, and supporting with the creation or development of resources for tamariki.

• Administration Support Staff: Our administration team are often who whānau have first contact with. They support our team with arranging appointments for clinics we run, being a first port of call on our contact number and supporting our team with administration tasks. 

How does the Child Development Service work? 

Our team members are here to work alongside you and your whānau and to support you with achieving your goals for your tamaiti. We work closely with the professionals who refer to us such as paediatricians, general practitioners (GPs), Plunket and Lifelinks (Needs Assessment Service). We also have strong ties with early childhood education providers, schools, and the Ministry of Education, so we can provide a coordinated service for you and your tamaiti.

Your support from our team is individualised and tailored to meet your current priorities or concerns for your tamaiti. We acknowledge that whānau know their tamariki best and know what will work best for them and see our teams’ role is to help you create a plan which you can use to support your tamaiti in achieving their goals. We work alongside whānau and regularly review goals set to monitor progress.

As our mahi with tamariki is tailored to meeting individual needs, our length of time being involved with tamariki can vary. Generally, once goals are achieved or if the tamaiti is making good progress towards achieving their goals, the episode of support with our team will end and tamariki will need a new request for support to re-enter the service. We welcome re-referrals up until tamariki have their 16^th birthday if additional support is required in the future.

We aim to work to our service vision, values and mission statement below, as well as the principles of Enabling Good Lives (www.enablinggoodlives.co.nz for further information).

Our vision

Kia tutuki pai e te tamaiti ki tōu pae tawhiti
For every child/tamariki to reach their full potential within an inclusive Aotearoa/New Zealand 

Our mission

Whakapiki Hauora o te Tamaiti me te Whānau
To improve, promote and support the health of the child and whānau

 Child Development Service Team Values 

• Family/whānau centred
  Being family centred recognises that each whānau/family is unique; that the family is the constant in the child’s life; and that they are the experts on the child’s abilities and needs. We work with the whānau to help them make informed decisions about services and supports they receive, ensuring that the strengths and needs of all family members are considered. 
• Goal focused
  We support families/whānau to work on goals and priorities that are most important to them. Evidence shows that interventions with goals lead to better functional outcomes 
• Empowering and supportive
  We aim to support and empower children and whānau, so they can reach their potential and become more independent. 
• Promoting participation
  We aim to support the children to be able to be involved in everyday activities across settings such as home, preschool, school and the community.
• Collaborative
  We work in partnership with the whānau and other services involved with the child

Working with our team: what we need from you

We want to work together with you so that your tamaiti and whānau achieve the best outcomes. Our services are under constant demand and to be able to provide the right service at the right time to  tamariki and whānau we request that the following occurs;

• If you need to rearrange your appointment with our team members, please contact us to do so ahead of time. Once three appointments have been missed without communication from you, we will look to close the episode of care. This will mean a new referral will be required to access our team again.
• If now is not a good time for you to work with our team, please let us know. We can close the current episode of care and your tamariki can be re-referred at a better time for you.
• Please ensure that if your contact details change at any time that you let us know (i.e. phone, address, G.P). This allows us to get in touch with you once the referral for your tamaiti is allocated to a therapist.
• We know your child’s healthcare journey can be stressful at times. Our team members strive to treat tamariki and their whānau with kindness and respect, and ask that they receive this in return. Verbal and physical aggression is not tolerated by our team.

Online learning packages

Our online learning packages are free and have been developed for families, whānau and caregivers – all you need is a computer or mobile phone. You can come back and review these as many times as you like and share with those who support your tamaiti. 

We welcome feedback on our online resources. If you wish to share any feedback after completing these learning packages.

Other resources

Home Safety Suggestions (PDF, 200KB): This handout has some ideas around how to support your tamaiti to be safe at home.  

Learning to ride a bike (PDF, 400KB): this handout provides a starting point to support your tamaiti with learning to ride a bike 

Learning to throw (PDF, 350KB): this handout provides some ideas to support your tamaiti with learning to throw a ball. 

Head Banging in Children (PDF, 200KB): This handout provides information around persistent head banging behaviours and supports you to consider some strategies to consider to support your tamaiti with head banging.

Routine Based Toilet Training (PDF, 200KB): This handout provides information on taking a routine based approach to toilet training for your tamaiti.

Some further resources or websites from other services you may be interested in: 

• Are you concerned about your Tamariki leaving your property or running away when out in the community? Safer walking www.saferwalking.nz is a national website that has a range of resources available for purchase to support you keeping your Tamariki safe. Ranging from GPS tracking devices, boundary alerts, wandersearch (land search and rescue). This website also links to other helpful services throughout Aotearoa.

• If you would like some ideas around supporting tamariki with anxiety concerns, you may like to look at this series of videos created by our colleagues in child health. The videos pull together practical information around managing children/ young people’s anxiety for parents. Supporting Young People with Anxiety – Strategies for Parents | Te Whatu Ora ‐ Waitaha Canterbury (cdhb.health.nz)

• Are you looking for help around the behaviour of your tamaiti? Explore Behavioural Support Services (Explore) have a range of online learning packages relating to supporting whanau to get some practical ideas and strategies around supporting behaviour as soon as possible. Explore’s courses are free to access and include learning modules related to supporting and understanding behaviour, communication, your child’s social world and supporting them to stay safe at home. You can find the direct link to Explore’s online resources for whanau here:  https://explorewellbeing.org.nz/our-services/behaviour-support/resources-and-online-support-for-families-and-whanau

• The Ministry of Education has some practical information about education for parents and carers on their website https://parents.education.govt.nz

• Kids Health is a good starting point for NZ parents & whānau looking for information for health and wellbeing of tamariki & rangatahi in Aotearoa. www.kidshealth.org.nz

• Whaikaha (Ministry of Disabled People) is a new ministry set up in partnership with the disabled community and Māori to transform the lives of many New Zealanders. Child Development Services are one of the disability supports that Whaikaha fund. www.whaikaha.govt.nz

• Some of tamariki accessing the Child Development Service will have had assessments and funding provision for Whaikaha funded equipment or housing modifications. Enable NZ is the provider for Whaikaha, of disability equipment and modifications for all of the country south of the Bombay hills.   Enable have a range of resources and information available on their website including the system for requesting to return equipment and current technician details to arrange a repair or maintenance for your existing Whaikaha/ Enable funded equipment, you can find the link to the Enable website here: www.enable.co.nz

The Child Development Service is funded by Whaikaha, the ministry of disabled people to provide services to tamariki with ongoing developmental or disability needs. As we hold a Child Development Service contract from Whaikaha, our team provides services according to this contract. Referrals to our team are reviewed as we receive them to ensure that we are the right service to provide the support being requested.

Please note, that referrals for our psychology assessment team are only accepted from the paediatric department.  

 Referrals are accepted from:

• Allied Health professionals
• Paediatricians or other medical team members
• General Practitioners (GPs) – Your GP can view referral criteria on the Community HealthPathways website 
• Needs Assessment & Service Coordination Service (NASC). In Canterbury this service is called Lifelinks.
• Community Health Professionals e.g. Plunket Nurses
• Ministry of Education Early Intervention or Special Education teams

We do not accept referrals for tamariki with the following concerns as this sits outside of our Whaikaha contract:

• Concerns or needs are school-based ie handwriting, transitions at school, access to the curriculum. In this case please discuss a referral to the Ministry of Education with your school.
• Concerns or needs related to language development or communication skills, should be directed to the Early Intervention Team at the Ministry of Education. The referral form for this team can be located at the bottom of this page.
• Concerns or needs are related to an acute medical or surgical need. Please discuss with your specialist or GP who the most appropriate service is to provide this support.
• The tamaiti is ACC-funded. In this case please discuss with the ACC case manager.
• If a diagnosis is required, please contact your General Practice for a referral to a Paediatrician.
• If you have chosen to see a private therapist. The Child Development Service are unable to provide any funding or reimbursement to whānau who chose to utilise private therapy providers.
• Where concerns are related to mental health challenges (i.e. ADHD, Anxiety). Please discuss with your GP the most appropriate service to provide support. This could be a local Non-Government Organisation (NGO), or The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Team.
• If the primary concerns are related to behaviour, then please discuss a referral to Explore Behaviour Support Services with your Lifelinks Coordinator if eligible, or please discuss NGO options with your GP.

Referral forms and information:

Request for Support – Therapy Team Child Development Service Referral Form (MS Word Docx, 100KB)

Ministry of Education referral form (PDF, 250KB)