Description

You have seen children with Downs Syndrome. You have heard of Autism. You may have heard the term “developmental delays”. These are all children with intellectual disabilities or designated “at risk”. Lifestart helps them all to live their lives with dignity and respect and reach their full potential within their family and their community.

Lifestart is unique in that it does not treat any child in isolation. Lifestart recognises that a child is born into a family, often has siblings and belongs to a wider community. At Lifestart, early intervention and ongoing support is the key to providing services to children, their families and their communities.

Each family is able to determine their own level of participation depending on their own individual needs and requirements within the framework of the Lifestart model. Lifestart is a parent co-operative that empowers the family to retain control when it is so easy to feel powerless or hopeless when a child is diagnosed with an intellectual disability.

Using best practice, world recognised and researched early childhood intervention techniques Lifestart provides playgroups, individual and group therapy sessions, counselling, family education and parent-to-parent support groups.

Lifestart also helps pre-schools, schools and community groups to better meet the needs of these children and their families. Lifestart’s “School Age Services” is particularly valuable to families at the time of transition to school. Lifestart makes the school experience as normal as possible and assists with teacher training and teachers aids.

Website

www.lifestart.org.au

State

New South Wales

Social Category

Children/Families