What’s new in children’s therapies at St George’s Hospital?
We spoke with the head of children’s therapies, Jo Harrington-Hill, to understand more about the children's therapies offer at St Georges. The children’s therapies department supports children with social and communication challenges such as autism.
They offer several services, including:
- Speech and language therapy children aged 0-16 years old)
- Occupational therapy (children aged 0-11 years old unless the child has a physical disability, then up to 18 years old)
- Physiotherapy (children aged 0-16 years old)
To learn more about accessing these services, visit the websites linked above and take a look at the ‘Referrals’ section.
This support is needs-based. This means that whether or not a child has a diagnosis such as autism, if they demonstrate need and go through the appropriate referrals process, they can access this support.
We chatted with Jo about how specialist therapies are offered. While they still provide one-to-one sessions for children, they have found that group therapies and support provided in classrooms can help children with social and communication challenges to apply the skills they learn in their everyday contexts. This means that even if a child is not getting one-to-one support, they could still benefit from support provided in classroom and group settings. Additionally, the clinical services team can support more children when they offer therapy in group settings and/or train school staff to provide the right support.
The therapy teams also train school staff to identify children who may have social and communication challenges and to help their students thrive in the classroom.
Children’s therapies work closely with Wandsworth Autism Advisory Service (WAAS) who offer a wide range of support to children and families before and after they have an autism diagnosis.
Want to know more about the support available for children with social and communication challenges in Wandsworth? Visit our resource page.
