Webinar: Early Childhood Development

Where: Online

CPE: 1.5 CPE points

Webinar Recording: Registering for this live event will also give you access to the webinar recording. 

Webinar recordings can be watched at any time.

Webinar: Early Childhood Development

Are you interested in treating children in your practice? Or are you a parent who is curious to know more about early childhood development?

This webinar is for you!

Health professionals including natural therapists from many disciplines, including but not limited to acupuncturists, naturopaths and manual therapists regularly support families towards improving their health and wellbeing.

Parents may ask questions and or seek support for their children from an early age, while the the level of paediatric training or experience of the practitioner can be highly variable. This can affect the readiness and or effectiveness of the clinician to apply their skills to the early childhood age group.

Younger children present different challenges in the clinical practice setting.

Practitioners must listen and address parental concerns, ask appropriate questions and rely on accurate observations of the caregivers in conjunction with child specific assessment skills in order to determine a diagnosis prior to treatment commencing.

The more information one can obtain from the guardian, the easier it is to determine what to do next. It’s important to recognise that children develop at different rates, from early, expected, late through to delayed. It is thought that 5-10% of Australian children have developmental delays.

Since 2020, many babies and young children have missed face to face maternal child health nurse appointments. This may mean they have not been as closely screened for developmental delay as they would have been otherwise.

Systematic developmental screening and documenting milestone attainment is useful in order to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and increases the likelihood of early diagnosis and intervention when required. It can act as a tool to monitor ongoing progress, provide opportunities for parental education and can support age-appropriate play, exercise and lifestyle. In addition, there is the possibility of alleviating parental concern when a child is developing on time.

Early intervention is more likely to be effective when initiated at a younger age. Not only does this reduce frustration of parent and child by helping them on their path to skill development, but assists with school readiness and puts children on the path towards NDIS support (where indicated).

The key aims of this webinar are to;

• Increase your confidence and skill in identifying early, expected, late or delayed early childhood development
• Use the information collected within your own clinical scope of practice appropriately
• Support development of interdisciplinary pathways and referral
• Better support your patients with common concerns
  

Presenter: Prue Eddie

Prue Eddie enjoys dividing her time between working in private practice, ongoing education and teaching. She has a special interest in women’s health and paediatrics and her busy private practice reflects this.

Prue completed her undergraduate training and Masters project at RMIT University in 2007. Prue is committed to further osteopathic education, completing a Graduate Certificate in Neonatal and Paediatric Manual Therapy at Victoria University in 2012. Prue mentors osteopathic students to prepare for clinical practice and currently provides clinical supervision.

Since 2012, Prue has been the Australian Course Co-ordinator for the Australian Research College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM), who runs training for registered Osteopaths. Additionally she is a faculty and board member of the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation of Australia and New Zealand. She is a professional member of Osteopathy Australia and the Australian Breastfeeding Association and maintains national registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.

She has worked in a number of clinics in eastern Melbourne since returning from working in Auckland, New Zealand and now feels at home living in the Yarra Valley and is the director and principle Osteopath at Koru Natural Therapies, in Chirnside Park Victoria.

Prue enjoys spending time with her family including her 2 dogs Falko and Saffy, hiking, scuba diving, travelling and practising her German language skills.