An unhurried first conversation
A free, unhurried conversation with one of our early intervention specialists. Usually around an hour, sometimes longer. Long enough to answer your questions and work out together whether we're a good fit for your family. No paperwork, no assessment, and no pressure to commit to anything afterwards.
We'll call you within one business day to arrange a time.
Or call us on 1300 131 805
What it is
Most families come to us already worn out. They've been through diagnosis, through planning meetings, through providers that didn't quite fit. Some are at the very start, still wondering whether what they're noticing in their child is something or nothing.
Either way, we don't think the first meeting should look like a clipboard and a checklist. So it doesn't. A Discovery Session is usually around an hour, sometimes longer, with one of our early intervention specialists, someone who spent years as a classroom teacher before training in DIRFloortime, talking with you about your child and your family, in whatever depth feels useful to you.
By the end, you'll have a clearer sense of what early intervention with us would actually look like for your child. Whether that's something you want to pursue with us, with someone else, or not at all, you'll leave with more clarity than you arrived with.
Who you'll meet
Every Eluma practitioner trained as an early childhood educator first: years in classrooms, with thirty children a day, before moving into therapeutic work.
Every practitioner holds a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education. Most have a minimum of five years of classroom experience before joining us. Senior practitioners bring ten or more.
A relationship-based developmental approach with thirty years of published research behind it. Not generic play-based therapy. A specific framework for how learning actually happens through connection.
Once we begin, sessions happen at home, in kinder, at school, or in our Narre Warren office, whichever combination makes sense for your child. The Discovery Session itself is in our office, over Zoom, or sometimes in your home.
Why it matters
Early intervention works when strategies hold up in the places a child actually spends their time: at home with siblings, in a kinder room with twenty other children, on the mat at school. That's a different problem than designing a strategy in a quiet therapy room. It's the problem teachers have been solving every day for years.
Most allied health professionals do excellent work within their scope, and we refer to them often. What we add is the bridge. Years of classroom experience means we know what's realistic on a Tuesday morning in kinder, how a strategy will land with a relief teacher who's never met your child, and what your educator can sustain across a thirty-child room. Without that bridge, even the best clinical advice can stay on paper.
It's an unusual background in our field, and it matters more than almost anything else we could tell you about ourselves.
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN
When an OT, speech pathologist, or physiotherapist gives you strategies for your child, we help translate them into what's actually workable in your kinder or school, and we share that translation directly with your educators. The strategy stays the same. What changes is whether it survives a Monday morning.
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN
Most families come home from a specialist appointment with a list of things to do and very little sense of how to start. We work alongside you in the rhythms you already have, like meals, bedtime, and the school run, to make recommendations land in the actual texture of your week, not as a separate set of homework.
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN
Our DIRFloortime work is grounded in published research, but the strategies we use have also been tested in kinder rooms and classrooms with hundreds of children over the years our team has been teaching. We know the difference between an approach that works on a slide and one that works at 9.45am on a wet Wednesday.
What happens
There's no fixed agenda. The shape of the conversation depends on where you are in the journey, what you already know, and what you most need to understand. But most sessions move through three areas, in roughly this order.
Most families haven't had a professional sit and listen for sixty minutes without interrupting to write something down. We start there. Your concerns, your child's story so far, what's working at home and what isn't.
Based on what you've told us, and what we observe through play and conversation if your child is with you, we'll talk through what we'd want to understand more deeply, and how a DIRFloortime approach might support your child's development.
What it would cost. How it would work with your NDIS plan if you have one. How we coordinate with kinder or school. How long things typically take. Whatever you came in wanting to know.
Before you book
A Discovery Session is most useful for families in a fairly specific situation. Being clear about that upfront saves everyone's time.
This is for you if
Probably not the right fit if
Not sure where you sit? Book the session anyway. We'll be honest if we don't think we're the right fit.
After you book
From the moment you fill in the form to the moment you decide whether to continue with us, you're not committed to anything.
i.
Within one business day of your enquiry, one of us will call to arrange a time that suits you, and confirm whether the Discovery Session is in our office, on Zoom, or in your home.
ii.
Around an hour, sometimes longer. No paperwork before or during. Bring your child if it makes sense, or come alone if it doesn't.
iii.
Whether you come back to us or not, you'll leave with a clearer sense of what to do next. If you do want to continue with us, we'll walk through enrolment in your own time, never in the session itself.
Early intervention works best when families don't feel rushed into it. The Discovery Session exists so you can ask everything you want to ask, without having decided anything yet.
Or call us on 1300 131 805