As Occupational Therapists at The Therapy Network (TTN), one of the things we see again and again is that children rarely experience challenges in exactly the same way everywhere they go.

A child might confidently complete a task during a one-to-one therapy session but find that same task much harder in a busy classroom.

They may seem to manage beautifully throughout the school day, only to arrive home exhausted, overwhelmed and emotional.

Or parents may tell us that a particular routine is incredibly challenging at home, while teachers see very few difficulties at school.

None of these observations are necessarily wrong.

They are simply different pieces of the same puzzle.

That is why collaboration is such an important part of paediatric Occupational Therapy.

At TTN, we believe children are best supported when the child, their family, educators, therapists and other important people in their life are working towards shared, meaningful goals.

Because therapy shouldn’t exist only within a therapy session.

The skills we work on need to make a difference where children actually live, learn and play.

Therapy Is About Everyday Life

Occupational Therapy is centred around participation.

When we work with a child, we aren’t simply asking:

“Can they complete this skill during therapy?”

We are also asking:

“Can they use this skill when and where they actually need it?”

A child may be practising how to:

  • Follow a visual schedule
  • Write more comfortably
  • Open their lunchbox
  • Pack their school bag
  • Join a game
  • Recognise when they need a break
  • Use a calming strategy
  • Begin a classroom task
  • Organise their belongings
  • Complete a morning routine
  • Ask appropriately for help

Being able to practise these skills during therapy is important.

But being able to use them independently at school, at home or in the community is where they begin to make a meaningful difference.

This is where teamwork becomes so powerful.

Everyone Sees a Different Part of the Child

One of the most important things we remind ourselves as OTs is that we don’t have the whole picture.

We bring our clinical knowledge and observations, but families and teachers bring information we could never gain from an assessment alone.

Families Know Their Child Best

Parents and carers know their child’s history, personality and daily life in a way nobody else can.

You know:

  • What makes your child laugh
  • What they avoid
  • Which routines cause stress
  • What mornings look like
  • What happens after school
  • What motivates them
  • Which sensory experiences they seek or avoid
  • How they communicate when something feels wrong
  • What helps them feel safe
  • What your family needs most

Sometimes seemingly small pieces of information completely change how we understand a child’s needs.

A parent telling us, “They hold everything together at school and fall apart the minute they get in the car,” gives us important information about the energy that child may be using to manage their school day.

Likewise, hearing that getting dressed takes 40 minutes every morning tells us far more than simply knowing that a child can technically put on their clothes.

Occupational Therapy is about functioning in real life, which makes family knowledge essential.

Teachers See Children in a Unique Environment

The classroom is a busy and complicated environment.

Children are expected to listen, move between activities, remember instructions, interact socially, manage their belongings, complete work, cope with noise, wait, take turns, problem-solve and regulate their emotions—often all within a very short period of time.

Teachers see children attempting these things every day.

They may notice that a child:

  • Avoids written work
  • Needs repeated instructions
  • Struggles after lunch
  • Finds assemblies overwhelming
  • Has difficulty joining playground games
  • Becomes distressed when routines change
  • Takes longer to begin tasks
  • Constantly loses equipment
  • Finds group work challenging
  • Needs movement to maintain attention

These observations are enormously valuable to us as OTs.

They help us understand not just whether a child is finding something difficult, but when, where and under what conditions that difficulty occurs.

What Does the OT Bring to the Team?

Our role as Occupational Therapists is to look closely at the interaction between the child, the activity and the environment.

We may consider areas such as:

  • Fine motor skills
  • Gross motor coordination
  • Handwriting
  • Sensory processing
  • Emotional regulation
  • Executive functioning
  • Attention
  • Organisation
  • Self-care
  • Play
  • Social participation
  • Independence
  • Environmental demands

Importantly, we don’t want to focus only on what a child can’t do.

Instead, we ask questions such as:

What is making this difficult?

Does the child have the skills required for the task?

Is the environment placing additional demands on them?

Could we change the task?

What strengths can we build on?

Would a visual support, environmental adjustment or different approach make participation easier?

Sometimes the solution involves building a child’s skills.

Sometimes it involves changing the environment.

Often, it is a combination of both.

And We Can’t Forget the Most Important Team Member: The Child

Children should never simply be passive recipients of therapy.

Wherever possible, we want them to have a voice in what we are working towards.

Depending on their age and communication style, children and young people may be able to tell us:

  • What feels difficult
  • What they want help with
  • What makes them uncomfortable
  • What strategies they like—or dislike
  • What they wish adults understood
  • What they want to become more independent with

A goal that adults think is important may not necessarily be the goal that matters most to the child.

Listening to children supports not only better therapy outcomes but also self-awareness, confidence and self-advocacy.

As children become teenagers and young adults, these skills become increasingly important.

Shared Goals Make Therapy Meaningful

One of the best things a collaborative team can do is agree on what everyone is actually working towards.

For example:

Instead of:

“Improve fine motor skills.”

We might work towards:

“Independently open lunch containers and manage the lunchtime routine at school.”

Instead of:

“Improve emotional regulation.”

A more functional goal may be:

“Recognise when becoming overwhelmed and use an agreed strategy or ask for support before returning to classroom participation.”

These goals tell us something very important:

Why does this skill matter?

Functional goals make it easier for everyone to know what progress looks like and how it can be supported naturally throughout the child’s day.

Consistency Doesn’t Mean Everything Has to Be Identical

Families sometimes worry that every strategy needs to be implemented exactly the same way at home, school and therapy.

It doesn’t.

School and home are very different environments.

What matters is that the adults around the child have a shared understanding of what the child needs.

For example, a child might use:

  • Similar language when asking for a break
  • The same visual symbols across environments
  • Familiar steps for completing routines
  • Consistent expectations around independence
  • Predictable warnings before transitions

The exact strategy can be adapted to suit each environment.

Consistency is less about making everything identical and more about avoiding completely conflicting expectations.

When Sensory Needs Look Different at Home and School

Sensory processing is a great example of why collaboration matters.

At school, a child might find it difficult to manage:

  • Classroom noise
  • Bells
  • Assemblies
  • Bright lighting
  • Crowded corridors
  • Physical Education
  • Unexpected touch
  • Lunchtime
  • Sitting for long periods

At home, difficulties may appear during:

  • Hair brushing
  • Tooth brushing
  • Dressing
  • Mealtimes
  • Vacuuming
  • Shopping
  • Bathing
  • Bedtime

When we bring observations from different environments together, patterns often begin to emerge.

We may discover that the child has been coping with significant sensory input all day and has very little capacity remaining by the time they arrive home.

Strategies might then include movement opportunities, quieter spaces, visual preparation, environmental adjustments or predictable routines.

Our aim isn’t necessarily to remove every sensory challenge.

The goal is to help the child participate successfully while having their sensory needs understood and appropriately supported.

“But They’re Fine at School…”

This is something we hear regularly.

A child may appear calm, compliant and engaged throughout the school day but become extremely emotional when they arrive home.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they were completely comfortable at school.

They may have spent significant energy managing:

  • Noise
  • Social expectations
  • Academic demands
  • Transitions
  • Sensory input
  • Uncertainty
  • Following instructions
  • Staying seated
  • Managing emotions

By the time they arrive somewhere they feel safe, they may have very little capacity remaining.

Equally, another child may thrive within the highly structured routines of school but struggle more at home where routines are naturally less predictable.

Rather than asking:

“Who is seeing the real child?”

We prefer to ask:

“What is different about these environments, and what does that tell us about the child’s needs?”

Both perspectives matter.

Executive Functioning Is Another Team Effort

Executive functioning helps children and young people manage the many steps involved in getting things done.

These skills help us:

  • Plan
  • Organise
  • Remember
  • Start
  • Prioritise
  • Manage time
  • Shift between activities
  • Solve problems
  • Monitor our progress

At school, executive functioning difficulties might look like forgotten instructions, lost belongings, difficulty beginning tasks or becoming overwhelmed by large assignments.

At home, they might appear during:

  • Morning routines
  • Homework
  • Packing school bags
  • Chores
  • Preparing for activities
  • Bedtime

An OT might suggest strategies such as:

  • Visual schedules
  • Checklists
  • Timers
  • Colour coding
  • Step-by-step instructions
  • Breaking larger tasks into smaller parts
  • Consistent locations for belongings
  • Predictable routines

When families and teachers understand and reinforce similar approaches, the child receives far more opportunities to practise.

Over time, the adult support can gradually be reduced as independence increases.

Small Strategies Can Make a Big Difference

Collaboration doesn’t need to mean complicated plans or endless meetings.

In fact, some of the most effective strategies are incredibly simple.

We might recommend:

  • A two-minute movement break before writing
  • A checklist attached to the desk
  • A consistent location for belongings
  • A visual morning routine
  • One agreed phrase for requesting a break
  • A timer before transitions
  • A change in seating position
  • Breaking one instruction into smaller steps

As therapists, we need to remember that teachers are supporting an entire classroom and families are balancing work, appointments, siblings and everyday life.

A recommendation is only useful if people can realistically use it.

Small, sustainable changes are often far more powerful than complicated strategies that are impossible to maintain.

Good Communication Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated Either 

Collaboration might include:

  • A brief email
  • A parent update
  • A teacher questionnaire
  • A school observation
  • Sharing work samples
  • A therapy report
  • A phone conversation
  • A visual support
  • A student support meeting
  • A case conference where appropriate

What matters isn’t how long the communication is.

What matters is that it is specific, respectful and focused on helping the child participate.

For example, telling us:

“Their attention is poor.”

gives us some information.

But telling us:

“They participate well for the first ten minutes of group time but then begin leaving their seat when verbal instructions continue,”

provides much more useful information.

It tells us when the challenge occurs and helps us begin exploring why.

Collaboration Is Also Important for NDIS Planning

For children receiving NDIS supports, information from the people who know the child across different environments can help us understand their functional needs more comprehensively.

This can be particularly valuable when developing:

  • Therapy goals
  • Progress reports
  • Functional Capacity Assessments
  • Therapy recommendations
  • Evidence of functional impact
  • Future support recommendations

What happens during an individual therapy appointment is only one snapshot of a child’s functioning.

Understanding what happens across home, school and the community helps us build a much more complete picture.

Of course, information sharing should always occur with appropriate family consent and respect for the child’s privacy.

When We Work With Schools

Depending on the child’s needs, goals and school processes, our collaboration with schools may involve:

  • Classroom observations
  • Teacher consultation
  • Reviewing work samples
  • Participation-focused assessment
  • Modelling strategies
  • Developing visual supports
  • Environmental recommendations
  • Short-term intervention
  • Meetings with relevant school staff

Our aim is not to come into a school and tell teachers how to teach.

Teachers are experts in education and their classrooms.

Instead, we bring an Occupational Therapy perspective and work collaboratively to find strategies that are clinically appropriate and realistic within the school environment.

Progress Doesn’t Always Look Dramatic

Some of the most meaningful therapy outcomes can seem small from the outside.

Progress might look like:

  • Getting ready for school with two reminders instead of ten
  • Asking for a movement break independently
  • Opening a lunchbox without adult assistance
  • Joining playground activities more often
  • Starting written work with less prompting
  • Recovering more quickly after becoming overwhelmed
  • Remembering to pack equipment
  • Tolerating a change in routine
  • Telling an adult, “I need help”

These changes matter because they represent increased independence, participation and confidence.

When teachers and families share these moments with us, they help us understand whether skills are transferring into everyday life—and that is one of the most meaningful measures of progress.

There Is No Perfect Team

Collaboration doesn’t mean everyone will always see things the same way.

Families, teachers, therapists and children may have different observations or priorities.

That’s okay.

The aim isn’t immediate agreement.

The aim is curiosity.

When perspectives differ, some of the most useful questions we can ask are:

  • What are we each noticing?
  • When does the difficulty happen?
  • When doesn’t it happen?
  • What has already been tried?
  • What seems to help?
  • What is different between environments?
  • What is realistic?
  • What does the child think?
  • How will we know if our strategy is working?

Sometimes it is precisely those different perspectives that help us uncover what a child needs.

Better Together: Our Approach

At The Therapy Network, we see families and educators as essential members of the therapy team.

As Occupational Therapists, we bring our understanding of development, sensory processing, motor skills, executive functioning, emotional regulation and participation.

Teachers bring their understanding of learning, the classroom, peer relationships and educational expectations.

Families bring an unparalleled understanding of their child, their routines and what matters most to them.

And the child brings their own experiences, priorities, strengths and voice.

When we put those perspectives together, therapy becomes much more than an appointment.

Strategies begin to make sense in the environments where they are actually needed.

Children receive more consistent support.

Adults gain a greater understanding of what may be sitting underneath a child’s difficulties.

And, most importantly, children are given greater opportunities to feel capable, understood, included and confident.

At TTN, that’s what meaningful Occupational Therapy looks like to us.

Because when everyone around a child works together, we aren’t simply helping them practise skills—we’re helping them use those skills to participate more fully in everyday life.