Occupational therapy for children in Brunswick and the inner north

The inner north — Brunswick and its neighbours down through Parkville to North Melbourne — is the newest part of our service area, added because so many enquiries were coming from just over the Moonee Ponds Creek. Apartment and terrace living shapes the work here: sessions make use of whatever space a home actually has, and local parks do a lot of the gross-motor heavy lifting.

Families in this patch ask about play therapy more than any other — usually after hearing the term from a kinder teacher or another parent. At our practice, play therapy means play-based occupational therapy: sessions that look like play to your child and are structured therapy underneath. Our play therapy guide explains how that works and what the research says.

The inner north is also well served by three-year-old and four-year-old kinder programs, and kinder-room visits are a big part of our week here — watching how a child manages the mat, the cloakroom and the sandpit tells us things a clinic session never could, and gives educators strategies they can use the same day.

Suburbs we visit in this area

A suburb missing from the list isn't necessarily a no — it may just sit outside our usual travel patch. The suburb checker on the contact page gives you a definite answer, and telehealth is available everywhere.

How sessions usually run here

• Home visits that work with real inner-north homes — small spaces are not a barrier
• Kinder visits across the three-year-old and four-year-old programs, with educator strategies left behind
• Telehealth as a first option for parent-focused sessions, which many inner north families prefer

Travel for mobile sessions is billed transparently and capped at half the hourly rate — the details, along with every fee we charge, are on thefees and funding page.

What we help with

The same play-based occupational therapy we deliver everywhere: fine and gross motor skills, self-care and daily routines, sensory processing, emotional regulation, play and social skills, and school readiness. Ourguide to children's OT covers what that looks like in practice, our play therapy guideexplains the method, and the services page lists everything we offer — including school and kinder consultation for the settings we visit in this area.