“Hi Eva,” said four-year-old Patrick approaching a friend by the play equipment.

“Can I hug you, Eva? I’ve missed you.”

Eva, four years of age, and Patrick, five, share a moment of innocent tenderness while the parents watch on.  

The families here have travelled through, and continue to navigate, the undulating nature of supporting their child, and oftentimes, children, with additional needs. This simple gesture, of connection, means a great deal. As does the opportunity to meet with one another.

“Oh it’s amazing,” said Melissa, who has been a part of the PlayConnect+ community since her eldest Patrick was 20 months old.

“You can catch a breath. Normally you are so anxious to go out. Our kids have huge meltdowns, they abscond but having a safe place for them, where they can’t get out and there is other people’s help- if someone is melting down, Fiona is here to help. Fiona has, many times, helped me carry Patrick out to the car.”

“It is safe, there is no judgement about the kids behaviour so you can all just have a breath and the kids can be themselves.”

This PlayConnect+ session is among a handful running over the holidays, maintaining continuity and support for families while regular PlayConnect+ playgroups, for children aged 0-5, take a break.

The holiday sessions are aimed at children aged five to eight, along with their families and often younger siblings.

Many of the families have been on the ride with Fiona, the facilitator, who has three children with autism, and as such, a profound understanding of the circumstances.  

A pertinent stress for families caring for children with additional needs relates to support services and therapies- where to get access to them, how to access them, how to gain assistance.

“It has helped us navigate things, ever since lockdown and applying to the NDIS,” said mum Melissa. “It was so foreign to us. Having someone like Fiona and other families that were like ours- we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything and there were other families who were just like us, in the exact same position. It is just an amazing thing here.”

The parents independently echo the main benefit they feel here at PlayConnect+: “There is no judgement.”

Rachael has been attending PlayConnect+ for six years, her eldest now 11 attended previously. Her daughters Isabelle, four years old and Charlotte, five, attend today.

“I love that there is no judgement. It is a space to come and no one is there to judge you, everyone is welcome and I like that it is a well organised program, it is not just turn up and hope for the best.”

Crucially, that organisation helps the kids to know what order the session proceeds in, there is a routine. It helps the children feel calm and prepares them for kinder and school.

Rachael initially felt a void in the early years.

“There is nothing in-between giving birth and then starting kinder. So when, as a parent, when you start to have these feelings that something is not quite working here, something is not connecting, I’m not sure what this is, there is nowhere else to turn to- whereas with PlayConnect+ you can at least make contact with Fiona and say, ‘I think something is not quite right, can we join your playgroup?’ and she was able to launch you off to whoever you needed to see to get supports and get those things happening.”

“Other than that, unless you find someone specialised in that area, you are waiting for kinder to start and by then you have missed the early intervention, the beginning of the early intervention period so it has, definitely for us, it has been- I don’t think- we wouldn’t be so far ahead, because of Fiona. It’s critical.”

Rachael thinks of Fiona as her support person: “She has been a constant all the way through.” Fiona offers advice and provides Rachael with space to download and process changes and challenges.

“A common issue for all of us is- you go out in public and you are generally not leaving in the best headspace, whereas here you come and you leave in a good headspace. It has been a good day, regardless of how your child’s behaviour has been. Everyone has been supportive, whereas at the zoo where your child has a meltdown and everyone is looking sideways at you.”

“You always leave here feeling good, you never leave here feeling terrible.”

Susana, mother to five year old Fotini, has been glad to have found support, alongside parents, carers, facilitators.

“They have more of an idea of your experience.”

“It has been good for me to talk it over, to validate that I am not just seeing things, I am not just being an overprotective parent, I can see it and it is there, it’s valid because I did get dismissed a lot.”

Susana looked far and wide to find a place for her daughter to socialise and belong.

“I’ve got childcare and teaching background for the last 30 years and I have got five kids but you still doubt yourself,” said Susana. “You still doubt yourself. You are not 100 per cent sure whether you are doing it correctly or you’re not, am I chasing every possible avenue, am I exhausting everything I can or am I just a noisy, squeaky wheel and not getting anywhere- but talking to the other parents, seeing what they are doing, seeing what schools they are going to, what they are looking at, it’s what you are thinking.”

“There are some things you don’t want to say out loud. You don’t want to say how exhausted you are, or how hard your day has been, but hearing it from other parents and the facilitators as well, you realise, I am not the only one who is feeling like this. It really did feel overwhelming, even though she is my fifth child.”

Susana finds the PlayConnect+ playgroup warm and welcoming, providing a great space that her daughter readily needed.

“It is very hard to find, since she was two.”

“Whereas, she is going to get social interaction where there are educators who can facilitate and there are other parents there with [children with] special needs who can understand a small tantrum or not waking up well.”

“That’s been my biggest challenge. I don’t want her copping bad behavior from regular kids.”

“I think there is a need for older kids for a playgroup because she is on the spectrum and it’s hard.”

“I reckon, if I wasn’t as determined as I am naturally, I could have fallen down a rabbit hole,” said Susana, because there was nothing there and I kept reaching out and there wasn’t anything available and so I would be hands up, down our end, we need some more.”

If the parents and carers are falling down the rabbit hole, so too are the children.

“They feel it all. I reckon they even feel it more, they just can’t express it,” said Susana.

The parents and carers need to be equipped with the right support, to support their child to grow and thrive and enjoy themselves, as all children should.

For many parents, this is there only adult conversation for the week,” said facilitator Di.

“One of the dads did say to me, this isn’t just about my son, this is about me as well- and I think when you put that aspect together and then you build that rapport- that is why that rapport is so important because they will come to you- and they just want to chat, they don’t want to talk about their problems, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. You’ve got to have the rapport.”

For Di, PlayConnect+ provided her with the opportunity to leap back into the workforce and contribute, without her family life being incumbered. Like so many other parents to children with additional needs, Di is limited on what she can do in the workforce, needing to attend appointments and therapies with her child. Her main priority is to be a steady, reliable, safe force in her young daughter’s life.

“I have learnt a lot, a massive amount.”

“I think the biggest thing I learnt was to get in touch with my inner child. That personality of mine, it’s a bit daggy, but it brought something out in me that I had almost forgotten because my kids are older now so we don’t do the singing and the play. It brought something out in me that I think, I hope, relates to the kids and they can find some common ground with me.”

Di brings energy and kindness, welcoming every family with open arms. She talks about the importance of the common ground they share.

Di said she never takes it for granted: “I love my job.”

Fiona, too, loves her job. Having three children with additional needs entirely changed the course of Fiona’s life but for the better. PlayConnect+ has brought great meaning and purpose to Fiona:

“I have loved facilitating PlayConnect+ sessions, I feel so blessed and privileged to have supported so many children and their families in this district over the last six years. I really value the difference the PlayConnect+ program makes for the children and families that attend. It's wonderful that the program now extends to support 5–8-year-olds in the form of our school holiday program.”

Patrick’s younger sister Lottie races around the curved garden path, stopping by the vibrant foam tray, sharing her favourite colour before zooming off on a scooter. “When Lottie first came, she could not even crawl and barely spoke,” said Fiona, who has been facilitating this unique playgroup for six years.

In the PlayConnect+ garden, the families hug and chat as they say goodbye for the week. The families are familiar with the challenge and hardship, yet know there is space for that to co-exist- with humour, creativity, intelligence, connection- and, always an undercurrent of understanding and love.

When we meet with unexpected complexity in life, we reach for reason. The question often circles back to: Why?

The nature of life- and that question of ‘Why’ that we ask ourselves can be reframed, to ‘It is’ and we walk on with an awareness for the gifts of life- for each other, for ourselves, our strength, for our family and our children’s capacity for love.  

Find a local PlayConnect+ playgroup and learn more here.

Article by Sinead Halliday
Photography by Mylie Nauendorf