Our Bethany Community
The Bethany Staff Team Members are:
 | Vida Carmody - Manager My role at Bethany requires me to be responsible for the overall running of the program. Our program services families and children from the Camden Wollondilly area. I support families and staff while ensuring that all accountability requirements for various government departments are met. A major part of my role is doing initial visits to families, when they have just been told that their child has a disability or developmental delay and discuss what services Bethany may be able to provide or refer to other services if appropriate. This is a very distressing time for families and tears are often shed. Therefore I must be empathetic and supportive and am often a resource for them. I support staff and endeavour to keep all the team motivated and our knowledge base current with ongoing training. Most of Bethany's services are offered in the children's homes, preschool or other setting as best suits the needs of the families. However as our service is rapidly growing the need for some centre based therapy is becoming necessary. We work closely with early childhood services and the Department of Education with the children's transition to school process. We often coordinate assessments, information on schools offering additional support for families and often visit both mainstream and special schools with the children and their family to ensure the transition to the next most appropriate educational setting is smooth and as stress free as possible for the family. |
 | Kerri Whitfield - Program Assistant My role as the Program Assistant involves assisting the Early Childhood Teacher and Therapy Staff with any tasks to assist the implementation of a child's individual educational program. This can involve the preparation of visual prompts using Boardmaker which may help the child to understand an instruction, typing of reports, preparation of art/craft and other activities and supervising the children while interacting with them and their families. |
 | Lyn Hand - Occupational Therapist Lyn is a recent addition to the team. Her profile will appear here shortly. |
 | Pam Rogers - Speech Pathologist Speech Pathologists work with both adults and children to assess and treat difficulties involving language, speech, voice, feeding and swallowing. Through the Bethany Early Intervention Program I work with infants from birth to school age and their families. These children have been diagnosed with some type of developmental delay. Therapy is usually home based and includes many play based activities. As the children develop skills in listening and attention we may progress to more formal learning tasks. Hopefully as part of the Bethany team I am able to help families access any additional services and resources that they may need. |
 | Karen Kelly - Early Childhood Teacher My role at Bethany is that of Early Childhood Educator. I provide, implement and evaluate educational programs based on observations of individual needs, skills and abilities. As part of a multidisciplinary team I work closely with other team members to set and work towards achieving goals for the children, across all developmental areas. It is widely believed that children with special needs flourish when they interact with their peers in mainstream pre-school settings. Itinerant support is crucial to ensure inclusion is successful. Liaison with pre-schools gives the opportunity to provide programming suggestions, assistance with implementing visuals, behaviour modification techniques and a link with outside agencies. Above all it ensures that all agencies involved with the children are working towards common goals. To view an profile of Karen that appears in the April 2009 Mater Dei Matters Magazines, please click here. |