What sort of things did you do to upskill yourself ?
A lot of child physiology development , oral motor function development , psychology development , behavioral training , feeding therapy and playbased learning education . I did a lot of different courses and then worked out what did or didn ' t work in the space I wanted to be in .
What were the sort of patients that were presenting to you ?
I had a background as an integration aid and lots of lived experience with disability in my family , so there was a pull towards that area and community . We started going into people ' s homes and doing feeding-related therapies and it was working really well . We grew from there into practices that have their own ‘ therapy kitchens ’. We still practice in people ' s homes , especially for those who have social anxieties or particular equipment they need to learn how to use . It allows us to be flexible .
Above images courtesy of
@ familydietitian
The concept of a therapy kitchen is really interesting . Can you tell us about how that came into being and what it entails ?
It ’ s a full operating kitchen with a dining room . I had some really big boxes that needed to be ticked for the space ; it needed to be gender friendly , disability friendly and all access . At our standalone in North Melbourne , we have two operating kitchens – on a busy Saturday , we might have four or five clients running at a time .
© Dietitian Connection 34 Infuse | May 2022