Meet Kimberley Talbot, Senior Early Childhood Education Specialist

Soon after schooling, Kimberley took the first steps of her career working in childcare. As she discovered a great joy in interacting with children of kindergarten age, she pursued a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education and worked for several years within local kindergartens. In time, Kimberley progressed to an inclusion support role within Early Years Management. She assisted educators with strategies and provided parents with guidance on accessing support for additional needs. These early experiences helped her make the natural progression to early intervention.

A career at Windermere: expertise that’s valued

By the time Kimberley joined Windermere in 2019, she had gained experience working with key workers and was passionate about supporting families who face challenges in addressing their children’s additional needs. The decision to commence her career at Windermere wasn’t a difficult one to make. 

“From the very beginning, I felt my knowledge and experience were valued and seen."

"I started as what was then called an ECIP or early childhood intervention practitioner,” says Kimberley of her early days at Windermere’s Early Intervention & Therapy Service (EITS) team. A year later, she advanced to the Senior Early Childhood Education Specialist (ECES) position which she currently holds.

At present, Kimberley extends her expertise as a keyworker primarily in Warragul and Latrobe Valley regions. The wide and varied functions of her role include providing strategies and ideas for families on the NDIS, supporting their capacity building, linking them with other professionals as needed, delivering direct therapy and assisting with transition to kinder or school.

Her functions further extend to assisting with childcare enrolments, offering supports to educators and other professionals involved with the children and even engaging with child protection services and other agencies when required.

Being the advocate: someone who understands

As these are families on the NDIS, Kimberley also helps them with their NDIS reviews and appeals, to help them access the right supports. She relishes the wins she’s able to gain for the families through detailed assessment of their needs. One such recent success was for a family with a three-year-old child with significant complex needs. Their initial request for funding for a support worker was met with rejection.

“I worked with the family to revisit all the documentation. I broke down what each day looks like for the mum and developed a carer’s impact statement on her behalf covering the frequency of behaviours and needs."

"We highlighted the barriers the family faces to demonstrate how it was beyond parental responsibility. Thankfully, our appeal was successful and the family now receives funding for a support worker,” explains Kimberley.

Kimberley also advocates for families to help their children with additional needs to successfully enrol in school. She approaches teachers with ideas and strategies that help them think outside the box so that a child with additional need is accepted in the school environment. Kimberely recently tackled a challenging circumstance to support a family enrol their child. The school raised concerns over the suitability of their environment for the child whose two other siblings were already enrolled.

“After a lot of advocating they accepted him and the feedback has been fabulous from the teachers who realise it’s not the experience they expected to have with the child,” says Kimberley adding that, “some families simply need someone on their side who understands.”

As a mum of two children with additional needs herself, Kimberley is indeed able to understand on a deeply personal level the challenges that parents experience.

Experience has also taught Kimberely to be mindful that parents can become overwhelmed, presenting a challenge in linking them with support.

“They all obviously want the best for their children but there are many contributing factors that can prevent a family from pursuing further intervention,” she says.

When parents are not prepared to begin that journey, a softer approach is necessary, one that teachers or educators in schools should also adopt.

Knowledge sharing and the rewards

While Kimberley puts to valuable use her expertise she values the knowledge she draws from the other practitioners in the EITS team including occupational therapists, speech therapists and physiotherapists. This pool of knowledge is particularly useful to fulfill her role as a key worker and function as the main point of contact.

“A child with complex needs may need multiple people. I find that my role is to bring different people together to make sure they are all on the same page. As a key worker, I consult with the wider team if there’s something outside of my scope or they accompany me on visits,” explains Kimberley.

This experience within the EITS team and Windermere has meant that Kimberley continues to expand her knowledge.

“It’s been a fabulous experience. I’ve had the space to explore different avenues. For instance, we’ve tried different group programs and this term we successfully ran Little Rays Supported Playgroup for children from zero to six years and shared the learnings with the team,” says Kimberley,

This six week play group that Kimberley runs with another Early Childhood Education Specialist, focusses on parent training through the use of handouts and other learning resources. One of the benefits of the program is that it is accessible to those parents who are still on the wait list and are yet to receive any key worker support services. The program has drawn positive feedback, as one parent shares:

We have been really enjoying it and I have loved seeing how Ryan* has been interacting in the group. I would highly recommend this group to others and I hope it is something you will be able to continue to offer.

For Kimberley it’s the many small gestures and responses through everyday interactions with those she supports that underscore the impact of her work.

“It's not about doing this work for the recognition, but it is the little things that make a huge difference; what they convey through their body language, their little comments or words of gratitude that I find rewarding. I've even had pictures drawn for me,” adds Kimberley.

When she’s not busy making life better and richer for children with additional needs, Kimberley turns to a few creative pursuits and leisure activities.

“I do like reading and dabble in a bit of crafting as well. At the moment I am teaching myself how to crochet.” 

Kimberley also enjoys the great outdoors and likes to go camping with her family.  

*Name changed to protect privacy

To find out more about our Early Intervention Therapy services visit here or call the team on 1300 946 337 or email info@windermere.org.au.  For more information on Little Rays group program visit here.