Collaborating With Your Therapy Team: Tips for Parents

Why Collaboration Matters in Therapy

Collaboration is one of the most important factors in a child’s progress. When parents and therapists work together, children receive consistent guidance that helps them feel safe, supported and ready to learn. Collaboration ensures that everyone understands the child’s goals, strengths and needs, and that strategies are carried across home, school and community settings.

Therapists bring professional knowledge and evidence informed practice. Parents bring insight into their child’s personality and history. When both perspectives come together, support is more effective and meaningful.

Open and Honest Communication

Clear communication forms the foundation of strong collaboration. Families are encouraged to share what they are noticing at home, including successes, concerns, changes in routines and new behaviours. These updates help therapists adjust strategies to suit the child’s current needs.

Parents can ask questions at any time. Understanding the purpose of a strategy or goal helps families use the same approach at home, creating consistency for the child. Therapists also appreciate feedback, including what is working well and what feels difficult or overwhelming for the family.

Regular communication may occur through conversation at the end of sessions, emails, shared notebooks or short check ins. The format is less important than maintaining a respectful and ongoing dialogue.

Sharing Family Priorities and Values

Each family has unique priorities, routines and cultural values. Sharing these early in the therapy process helps therapists design goals that are practical and relevant. For example, some families may focus on communication or feeding, while others may prioritise behaviour support, emotional regulation or school readiness.

Therapists can only create meaningful goals when they understand what the family hopes to achieve. When goals align with the family’s values, therapy becomes more effective and more sustainable.

Understanding the Child’s Goals

Therapists typically develop goals based on assessments, observations and family input. These goals may relate to communication, social skills, daily living, emotional regulation, feeding or behaviour.

Families may find it helpful to ask about:

• why each goal was chosen 

• what success looks like 

• how progress will be measured

• how the skill can be supported at home 

Understanding the purpose of each goal helps parents become active partners in their child’s learning.

Consistency Across Settings

Children learn best when strategies are used consistently across all environments. Consistency helps children understand expectations clearly and generalise new skills from therapy sessions into daily life. Parents can support this by:

• using strategies at home

• sharing resources with teachers or carers

• maintaining similar routines when possible

• encouraging practice in everyday activities

Therapists may also collaborate with schools and early learning centres to ensure consistent approaches. When everyone uses similar strategies, children experience less confusion and feel more confident.

Supporting Practice at Home

Home practice does not need to be time consuming. Most therapy strategies can be woven into everyday routines such as mealtimes, dressing, play and transitions.

Families can support practice by:

• modelling communication

• encouraging turn taking 

• using visual schedules 

• offering simple choices 

• practicing emotion naming 

• reinforcing positive behaviours

Small, consistent moments are more effective than long structured sessions. The aim is to make learning enjoyable and natural.

Advocating for Your Child

Parents play a key role in advocating for their child within the healthcare and education systems. This may involve communicating with teachers, sharing therapy goals with other professionals or asking for clarification when recommendations are unclear.

Advocacy is most effective when parents feel informed and confident. Therapists can support families by explaining terminology, providing written summaries and guiding parents through any formal processes.

Working With Multiple Professionals

Many children receive support from several professionals such as psychologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, feeding therapists, behaviour specialists and educators. Collaboration between all providers helps create a unified and coherent support plan.

Families can help by:

• giving consent for therapists to communicate 

• sharing reports across the team 

• attending joint meetings when possible 

• passing on important updates

When professionals share information, children benefit from consistent expectations and reduced overwhelm.

Building a Trusting Relationship

Therapy is most effective when families feel respected, supported and heard. A trusting relationship between parents and therapists creates space for open conversation, problem solving and shared decision making.

Parents can expect their therapist to listen carefully, explain recommendations clearly and involve them in every step of the process. Likewise, therapists appreciate when families share their concerns honestly and collaborate on solutions.

How Bloom Child Therapy Supports Collaboration

Bloom Child Therapy places collaboration at the centre of all services. We work closely with families to develop meaningful goals, understand daily routines and create strategies that fit naturally into home and childcare environments. Parents are encouraged to ask questions, share updates and participate actively in decision making.

We aim to provide regular communication, written summaries and clear recommendations that families can use at home. Collaboration with schools, early learning centres and other professionals is always encouraged to ensure consistency across all settings.