One of the most important departments within the KARI Foundation is the KARI Clinic.
The KARI Clinic is a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals, who work together to provide high-quality and coordinated care to clients of KARI Limited and KARI Foundation and the wider Aboriginal Community. The KARI Clinic aims to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal children, young people and adults engaged in KARI Programs.
The KARI Clinic initially tailored its programs and services to meet the needs of the children and young people in KARI Limited’s out of home care program. The Clinic Team now provides service delivery to children and adults engaged in KARI Limited’s programs including Permanency Support, Aboriginal Family Support and Targeted Early Intervention.
Whilst our core business is to provide therapeutic assessment and intervention, we do offer a raft of other services and programs including:
Award Winning Multidisciplinary Assessment Clinic
Run in partnership with the South West Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD), our multidisciplinary clinic ensures all children entering our Permanency Support Program have their needs comprehensively assessed as soon as possible. The partnership provides paediatric, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech pathology support.
The Multidisciplinary Assessment Clinic also accepts referrals from our Aboriginal Family Support program.
Transition to School Program
This 10-week program is designed to increase our children’s language and literacy skills in preparation for kindergarten. Each child is monitored and assessed to ensure they achieve outstanding results. This program indicates significant improvements in a child’s receptive and expressive language, phonological awareness skills, knowledge of book and print concepts, fine motor skills, visual and perceptual motor skills, self- help skills, pencil and scissor skills and listening skills.
Community Playgroup
Run every term on a weekly basis, playgroup is designed to ensure our clinicians are interacting with the children, while also developing a range of their skills including communication, fine motor, visual motor, literacy, play and social skills.
Dental Clinic
KARI Clinic and the South Western Sydney Local Health District have formed a partnership to ensure children and young people identified have access to oral health assessments.
Carer Support and Coaching
Our clinicians provide support not only for the child, but also for their carer. Whether it’s a home visit, a phone call, or behavioural advice and access to carer training workshops, they’re here to help. Our programs have proven vital to the development of our children, with results indicating a significant difference to their overall health and wellbeing has been achieved.
To ensure we can provide a one stop shop model of service delivery. The KARI Clinic employs a variety of staff from a range of allied health backgrounds. Our current team includes: