Hi Sunshine Coast and surrounding areas!
My name is Erin, and I am the Lead Interventionist for Kindred Kids. We are thrilled to launch our new program in April 2023! I am counting the days until I get to meet the children that I’ll be working with every day and build a team of people to help support each child achieve new skills.
I bet you are wondering who I am and how I can help! When you meet me in person, the first thing you’ll notice is my American accent. Yes, I am American, but please don’t hold that against me. America is where my journey to become an interventionist for autistic people began. I’ve actually gone a bit backwards with the ages that I work with. When I began implementing therapy 10 years ago, I worked with young adults (18+) who had well established programs from early childhood. Beginning this work sparked an interest to go back and complete my Psychology degree. I got into this field because I loved seeing change and growth and facilitating the process excited me so expanding my knowledge was a natural progression! Once I finished the degree, it was time for my next shift. 7 years ago, I made the leap across the ocean to Sydney, where I dabbled in earlier ages briefly before changing work to primarily youth and young adults once again.
About 3.5 years ago, an opportunity arose for me to cross into early intervention by completing my Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) certification. Beginning work solely with children was exciting because I got to see rapid and significant progress daily. There’s nothing like the neuroplasticity that happens in early years, and seeing that effect with children that I worked with was inspiring!
Kindred Kids has a special place in my heart because I believe that we will be able to accomplish something that is rare to see from providers. To become an affordable, high-quality provider would be the pinnacle of my career. (Often the two tend to be mutually exclusive!) Research standards advise 15-25 intervention hours for autistic children as the gold-standard for early intervention. Since moving to Australia, I’ve seen that less hours can still be beneficial, and it is certainly the rare child who meets the recommended standard. The program that Kindred Kids will be offering is based on Group ESDM (G-ESDM) so that we can effectively reach more children at fidelity and offer the recommended hours of intervention. Once we’ve got the building blocks for Kindred Kids with our initial centre, my vision would be to spread the company to as many locations as possible and reach as many children as we can. I just can’t wait to make this dream a reality!!
Aside from early intervention, professionally I have strong interests in ACT Therapy, Project ImPACT and counselling. Outside of the workplace, I love to hang with my sister and her young family; watching my nieces grow is captivating. I’m slightly obsessed with healthy eating and finding creative ways of getting all of my steps in each day. If anyone has a puppy or a dog, please bring them for a pat!!
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