Support MY Inclusion Workshops

ESDM Training also provides remote delivery workshops for Educators, Therapy Assistants and Parents / Carers living or working with Neurodivergent Children, whether it is in your ECEC settings or the family home. Participants do not need any qualification to join these workshops. They are also delivered by a Certified ESDM Trainer across 5 weeks, in two-hour sessions each week, allowing all participants to go back to their workplace or home and embed their learnings from the previous session. Participants can also use their NDIS funding to pay for these workshops. Through the workshops, participants will learn how to:

· understand autism and its Impact on a child’s learning and development

· become your child’s play partner as a foundation for ongoing learning

· assess and program for your child and use child data to monitor progress

· find your child’s smile

· capture your child’s attention for learning

· build back and forth interactions with your child

· use these strategies to include your child to a level of full participation

· use the evidence-based teaching principles to guide your practice

· promote your child’s development across all developmental domains

· understand and support coregulation

· create effective and responsive learning environments for all children

The evidence base used for all workshops is the Early Start Denver Model. (ESDM). This is a naturalistic play-based early education that can be embedded in multiple settings, including Intervention Programs, Therapy Clinics, Early Childhood Education and Care Settings, Primary Schools, and the Family Home. The ESDM approach has been manualised, which helps to bring all the adults in the child’s life working towards the same goals. The teaching principles used in this model are informed by expertise from early childhood education and allied health professions. Major learning goals include skills that enable social learning and engagement in naturalistic play and cooperative activities. Play is the natural medium of learning for all young children, so should be used as the most natural medium for neurodivergent children also. Through play and daily routines, we can embed all of the child’s goals, whether it is via object focused play, sensory social play, parent mediated play, or peer play.

Becoming a play partner with neurodivergent children is the most beneficial starting point for their well being and full participation in life