Positive results with our Main Therapist

(BELINDA:) My Key Worker originally came out and we discussed Aidan’s diagnosis.

We discussed some of the problems we were having with Aidan.

And some of the… then we looked at some of the things that I wanted to achieve with Aidan and some of the things that would make my family’s life that much easier if we could get to the bottom of.

(MINGYU:) Without help, life seems grey and dark.

(JANICE:) Noah’s Ark—or any other early childhood intervention—they’re there to help, you know?

Whether you’re struggling with potty training or whether you’re struggling with getting up out of bed in the morning—at the moment, I’m struggling with brushing teeth—you know, they’re there to help you.

And I can’t praise them enough, you know?

Without them, he wouldn’t be going to his other day care.

(LINDA:) The first week she ever came, she explained to me that if I wasn’t—happy with something that was going on, she explained the process that I could ring and talk to someone else at Noah’s Ark about that.

And I of course never needed to, but I think that’s a good back-up, because, I guess, personalities can clash and I think for such a good service, it’s worth ringing and saying, ‘Look, I don’t know that we’re getting on that well. Can I please have another…?’.

You know, ‘cause it’s such a good service.

And I appreciate that she told me, week one, ‘This is how we go about it, if you’re feeling we’re not, you know, getting anywhere.’

And that’s great. I mean, I didn’t ever have to use it.

(BELINDA:) Our Key Worker became part of our family.

I was… If you were having a bad day and the house was a wreck, they made you just feel so at home and so comfortable and it was such a great thing for Aidan and for me to not have to run out of the house, go into a therapist’s office where everyone was on edge and uncomfortable.

It was wonderful having someone at home.

(GUS:) She’s always there, you know, through all the highs and lows.

And with all those highs and lows, she’s always got a strategy for it.

So, you know, for the progressing and is always trying to push us ahead to get better and to make him better.

(MINGYU:) They understand our feeling.

(EMILY:) Yeah.

(MINGYU:) And they know in what stage what our family concerned about and what we need to think about in the futures, help us to plan out.

(BELINDA :) Some of the things we worked on were definitely about me.

At some point not long after Aidan was diagnosed, I suffered from depression.

As I was saying before, I wanted to fix the world.

I thought I could fix it.

And when I found out that I couldn’t, it was really, really tough for me.

And so a lot of the work that I did with my Key Worker was making me strong, making me better, and realize, ‘Hey, you can’t, but we can do… you know, it’ll be OK’.

(GUS:) She’ll give us praise as well, you know, which is, you know, feedback for us.

‘OK, so we didn’t stuff up that time’.

You know, which is good, you know?

We’ve gotta know the goods and the bads, I guess.

Because at the end of the day, it’s about looking after our son and what’s best for him, so…

(MELISSA:) A lot of things can be instinct as a mother to help your child through hard processes, but when you have a Key Worker to make that extra few suggestions, it’s really good because you can be caught up in a moment when your sons going through a hard time and you think that’s the right thing to do, but to have someone else say, ‘Yep, what you’re doing is perfect, but maybe you could do this and this and see if he reacts a little bit better’.

And then you get that reaction that you’re after and he does change—perhaps, you know, acknowledges you properly and looks at you and says that acknowledgement that you’re wanting instead of both yelling at each other and storming off in rooms, it’s really satisfying.

(MINGYU:) We now can see the positive change to Veronica.

And we know how to apply some of the strategies with Daniel.

And it seems they all have very happy life—less crying, less screaming, less unhappy.

And they grow up healthy and now, when they get better, we can have… we can have more time to study and work.

(EMILY:) Yeah.

(MINGYU:) So the future is bright.

(EMILY:) Getting better.

(MINGYU:) Yeah.