A New Quirky Kid
We’ve opened the doors to our new Quirky Kid Clinic in Wollongong.
Located in the coastal village of Austinmer (10 minutes North of Wollongong), this unique therapeutic space offers children and families a range of services and resources also available in our Sydney office.
Local parents are already making use of our comprehensive assessment services and we will soon share our 2011/2012 Workshop Calendar incorporating many new initiatives for children and young people with an emphasis on positive psychology and community development programs.
With more than $40 000 invested in this state of the art clinical and creative space, we look forward to welcoming new clients, colleagues and organisations in the Illawarra, Southern Highlands, Sutherland Shire and beyond to a vibrant new beginning for Quirky Kid Wollongong.
The key services offered at Austinmer are:
- Psychometric Assessments (inc. Developmental, Educational and ASD)
- Individual Counselling, Sibling Groups and Family Intervention
- Therapeutic workshops (inc. Best of Friends and Why Worry?)
- Comprehensive services under the Helping Children with Autism Package
- Classroom Observations, Case Conferences and Consultancy
- Mentoring and Youth Work.
You can contact us on + 02 9362 9297 to find out more information or to make an appointment.
Come and join the Quirky Kid Clinic and be part of an incredible team of Educational and developmental professionals while working with inspiring children and families.
You will be invited to participate in all aspects of our business like publishing, product development, networking and working creatively with children. If this sounds like something you would like to do… Please apply.
We have a part time positions for psychologists in Sydney and Wollongong and a further casual position in Wollongong for an early intervention professional.
Visit our website for more information about our team http://childpsychologist.com.au/about-us/our-team and the employment pages for Position description and details on how to apply http://childpsychologist.com.au/about-us/employment
We look forward to hearing from you
We are proud to introduce Julie Co as our new Early Intervention Specialist. Julie will be coordinating the service delivery for children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other developmental difficulties in collaboration with our psychology team.
Julie Co has had extensive training and experience as a senior applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapist and is currently working on gaining her registration as a provisional psychologist. She has been providing early intervention for children on the spectrum since 2004 and draws on her skills and current research to develop and implement individualised early intervention programs and strategies. Her full biography is available on our website.
With a focus on outcome, functionality and practicality, Julie provides ABA therapy as part of a well-rounded intervention program that targets various aspects of the child’s daily life. Such as:
- Behaviour management and cognitive development
- Developing social skills and communication
About our early intervention:
We recognise the growing need for effective and well coordinated Early Intervention Services for children with an ASD and will focus on delivering individualised and outcome-focused programs for our clients in Sydney and Wollongong. This initiative will include the following:
- Delivering individualised intervention programs and Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy in the clinic, home and school settings;
- Facilitating specialised workshops for parents, carers, siblings and families;
- Facilitating “The Best of Friends” and other Quirky Kid programs.
Visit our Early Intervention page: http://childpsychologist.com.au/service/early-intervention.
If you would like more information about Quirky Kid Clinic, Julie Co, our Early Intervention Services or another enquiry, we would love to hear from you. Please call us on +61 2 9362 9297 or contact us.
Kimberley O’Brien, our principal child psychologist, and Quirky Kid are proud to be invited to present during the 2012 ‘Educador’ Congress.
The congress is the largest education event in Latin America and will gather more than 100 speakers to discuss the issue “Family, Society and School: where do we want to go?” Our theme will be: Practical Strategies for social, emotional and behaviour issues for children and adolescents, or in Portuguese: ‘Estratégias Práticas para solução de problemas sociais, emocionais e comportamentais em crianças e adolescentes’.
The event Combines different issues related to the educational universe such as Teacher Education, Childhood Education and the Early Years, Learning Difficulties and Interdisciplinary Education, Bullying, Limits and others.
Quirky Kid publishing will also showcase our resources to the local industry including our newts program. Power Up: Using performance psychology to compete at your best.
You can read an article by Kimberley on the conference topic at the resources pages on our website.
If you are heading that way the following factsheet can be helpful. http://www.futuroeventos.com.br/fact-sheet/.
To book visit: http://www.futuroeventos.com.br/educar/en/
Quirky Kid in collaboration with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) are proud to present a series of workshops called ‘Therapeutic Resources for Children and Families’ around Australia.
We will be touching base in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane between May and June 2012.
Designed for developmental psychologists, educators, social workers and human resources professionals, this workshop includes clinical case examples to illustrate how to use therapeutic resources to address a broad range of issues.
Presented by author, illustrator and developmental psychologist, Kimberley O’Brien, this workshop includes examples of visual recording techniques and resource applications to engage individuals, siblings, students and families.
More information and booking details are available by following the links below:
Download a Flyer for more information and help to promote the workshop.
You can find our more about the our resources at the Quirky Kid Shoppe
Recently, the Quirky Kid Clinic worked with school staff from Year 5 at Moriah College in Sydney to facilitate the popular ‘The Best of Friends™’ in the classroom settingtting.
This 6 weeks program covered areas such as Making Friends, Social Skills, Empathy, Compromise, and Peacemaking in friendships. Students participated in a range of activities including painting, play dough, role play, and multimedia presentations while discussing the finer points of friendship and playground issues.
Each child was given a “Quirky Kid Tool Kit” including materials for the day as well as making use of the Quirky Kid Resources. Information sheet for parents were provided so they could also help their children to build social skills.
We are very satisfied with parental and school feedback on the positive outcomes the workshop has achieved so far.
Moriah Colleague Principal and Teaching staff were incredible supportive and showed great commitment toward students social development.
- If you would like some information on ‘The Best of Friends™ workshop for your child’s classroom, please contact us on 02 9362-9297
- This program has been present in many school around Sydney like, St Thomas, St Catherine’s School and others. We also run our workshops in in Sydney, Wollongong, and Melbourne.
Quirky Kid is delighted to be supporting the British Columbia Alternate Education Conference in Canada. For Quirky Kid, this is an exiting event worth telling you all!
The 2012 conference will be held January 19 & 20, 2012, at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre. Gabor Maté will be the keynote speaker! His topic will be The Hungry Ghost: A Biospsychosocial Perspective on Addiction, from Heroin to Workaholism. As well, he will present two other sessions, one on titled When the Body Says No on stress, and the other titled Scattered Minds on ADHD.
You can find our more about the conference and download a brochure at the conference website.
Quirky Kid publishing has a office in Canada where re have partnered with a local NGO organization. You can find more about our Canada partnership at the Quirky Kid Shoppe blog.
To order resources in Canada or USA visit: http://QuirkyKid.ca
To order resources in Australia or everywhere else visit: http://QuirkyKid.com.au/shop
Below is our Media Wrap-up for the months of October to December 2011.
Kimberley O’Brien and the Quirky Kid Contribute with the following publications to explore topics of interest of parents and their families.
- Practical Parenting: How to answer those tricky toddler questions. This useful article by Lauren Monaghan ask Kimberley all questions about Santa from Babies on Q & A Format.
- John Blackman from 3AW discussed the question: ‘ Should children be given cash for Christmas?
- ABC’s Organic Garden Magazine discussed with us the importance of outdoor play.
- The Sunday Telegraph run a story about the Quirky Kid Tickets and asked parents about how they find this tool.
- Practical Parenting: reporter Astha Gupta discussed with Kimberley the very important topic of ‘Coping after a Baby’
- Girl Friend Magazine: Reporter Rebecca Wish discussed supporting friendships.
- Good Health Magazine: Reporter Melanie Hearse discussed the topic of adult children returning to the family home and explored questions, planing.
- Seven News: Reporter Imogen Ball discussed children discipline with Kimberley based on a new research that as recently published.
- Woman’s Health Magazine: Deputy Editor Georgia Rickard discussed the use of visualization and its effectiveness as a goal setting.
You can contact us on 02 9362 – 9297 to schedule an interview or contact us.
It was a pleasure to participate during the 2011 Educational and Developmental conference in Melbourne last month.
Kimberley O’Brien - who also presented during the conference – and our team have enjoyed the current research findings from colleagues around Australia.
A great incentive for us in attending to the conference was Professor Nancy Mather’s workshop. Professor Nancy is a special education expert from the University of Arizona specializing in learning disabilities diagnosis and intervention.
More about our participation
Kimberley O’Brien, our principal child psychologist , presented on her PhD research topic on Social Inclusion, Self Esteem and Belonging For Students in Transition From Primary to Secondary School, that Kimberley is completing under the direction of Prof Helen Watt from Monash University.
About the conference
The Conference —Theory to Practice: Positive Development and Wellbeing, Educational and Developmental Psychology Conference 2011— is being hosted by the APS College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists to promote a broad spectrum of research in the sector from psycho-social wellbeing through to learning, literacy and numeracy. The College is committed to evidence-based practice and to promoting the best research and latest developments in the field.
What this means for our clients?
The Quirky Kid Clinic is committed to professional development to deliver current and evidence-informed intervention to all our clients.
Over the last years, we have focused on the topic of Learning Disabilities and assessments and are now better equipped to identify and support children and families experiencing learning difficulties and disabilities.
Contact us on + 02 9362 9297 for more information about our assessments or to schedule a consultation.
We are proud to announce the publication of Kimberley O’Brien and Jane Mosco’s book chapter on Positive Parent-Child Relationships by Springer press. The book, Positive Relationships, was compiled by Dr. Sue Roffey.
Kimberley is our Principal Child Psychologist.
This highly accessible book takes a positive psychology approach to explore why healthy relationships are important for resilience, mental health and peaceful communities, how people learn relationships and what helps in developing the positive.
The abstract is as follow:
Practitioners working in child and family psychology typically hear about the challenges of problematic parent–child relationships. A positive psychology approach, however, identifies what is effective in fostering family resilience and facilitating optimal parent–child relationships (Suldo SM, Parent-Child Relationships. In Gilman R, Huebner ES, and Furlong MJ (eds) Handbook of positive psychology in schools. Routledge, New York, 2009).Drawing on this perspective, this chapter summarises the literature, exploring different parenting styles and effective parenting strategies. We also outline changes in the parent–child relationship from birth through infancy, childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. We also consider the impact of alternative carers and cultural diversity with reference to mutually rewarding parent–child connections and increased child well-being.
We are proud to introduce our newest innovation – The Quirky Kid Tickets! Parents have been asking for and we are proud to introduce our effective behaviour management tool as recommended by Kimberley O’Brien, Child Psychologist.
Tickets are a complete reward system encouraging you and your child to work together to manage behaviour.
You start by setting clear, achievable goals together. Follow this up with lots of direct praise when you see your child achieve the goal. Finally, watch the surprise reward appear before your eyes as they scratch their Tickets to reveal fun and creative activities you can all share in.
‘Tickets’ is the latest resource to come from the creatives minds at the Quirky Kid Clinic. An inventive and cooperative tool for managing your child’s behaviour.
It is simple:
- Set a goal
- Give your child a ticket to acknowledge when the goal is achieved
- When your child collects enough tickets, he/she gets to scratch and win!
- Lastly, enjoy the fun and interactive reward activities together!
The Sunday Telegraph completed an article about our resource. You can read about it on The Telegraph online.
Visit the Quirky Kid Shoppe for more information on the Tickets and other unique Therapeutic and developmental resources for children and families.
We love therapeutic resources and go to great lengths to personally develop and produce our hand-packed kits. We are committed to providing parents and professionals around the world with creative and effective therapeutic tools that are tried, tested and loved in classrooms, clinics and lounge rooms around the globe.
