Myhorizon pilots new telehealth program for families in remote areas
Myhorizon will trial a new technology-assisted early childhood intervention support service for families in Longreach and Emerald.
Geraldine McKinnon, State Coordinator of Myhorizon's Baby Bridges early childhood intervention program, said the new program would help young parents in remote areas access vital support services such as occupational therapy, Auslan, speech therapy, children’s yoga, picture exchange communication and physiotherapy that would otherwise be unavailable to them due to distance.
“Our Early Intervention service is constantly innovating to better support families of children with disability throughout Queensland,” Ms McKinnon said. “By harnessing phone and video technology we will now be able to extend the benefits of our Baby Bridges program to children and parents who can’t attend our service centres in person”.
Myhorizon CEO Joe Gamblin said the new program would contribute to Myhorizon's vision to create equality of opportunity for people with disability throughout the state.
“The pilot program is a natural extension for our existing early intervention service and speaks to Myhorizon’s strong ability to respond to local community disability support needs across Queensland”.
A research collaboration with Southern Cross University’s School of Health and Human Sciences is also potentially in the offing, providing additional opportunities for the program to address the dearth of evidence-based research in the area of disability and wellbeing that will be critical to designing successful support programs under the NDIS.