Terms of Service

Hi we are Calm and Connected Pty Ltd (ABN 22 613 026 430) Thank you for choosing Calm and Connected to provide Therapy and Support services for your family. We look forward to building a relationship with your family and working towards goals that develop your child’s enjoyment in life. These terms of service are to help you understand what to expect from your therapy sessions and/or camp experience to help you make the most out of your time with our team.

At Calm and Connected we agree to:

• To work with you/your child and your family to the best of our ability towards meeting your, or your child’s goals. As part of how we work with individuals, we believe in passing on our knowledge of theory and strategies to you- so that you can understand how and why certain strategies or approaches work best for you or your child. If you are a parent or caregiver, this involves time with just you to go through this information. We are only one part of your child, or your journey! We rely on collaborating with you, your child and other people within your, or your child’s life to be able to provide support. We can only come into your life for short periods of time so we find it to be extra important to take this path in delivering services, so that you and/or your child can have the skills to continue to implement strategies and to grow.
• Provide reports within 2 weeks of request
• Provide an email or phone call update within 2 business days following a school visit (unless another method is preferred and discussed)
• Reply to emails and phone calls as soon as practicable and/or within 3 business days
• If no session times made in the initial appointment, 1-2 weeks following this time, the therapist will contact the family via email to check in and determine the need for future sessions.
• If families feel they are managing at that time of the first check in, the therapist will then contact via email again in 2 months time to check in unless otherwise requested by the family.
• Therapists should respond to voice messages and emails within 3 business days. If no reply is given in that time, please forward the email to contact@calmandconnected.com.au 
• Once you have engaged in our services, your email will be added to our email list to receive newsletters and updates. If you no longer wish to receive emails from us there are options to unsubscribe at the bottom of the newsletter, or please email or phone us to ask to be removed from this list.

Caregivers and Clients agree to:

• Be prepared to attend sessions and implement strategies and approaches, outside of therapy sessions.
• Disclose any medical conditions you (over 18)/your child may have that may impact on our support to you, and complete a medical action plan form, or provide one that they currently have.

• Provide a safe environment for Calm and Connected staff to conduct home and community visits this includes:
  • No smoking during appointments
  • Ensuring pets are kept out of the area that therapy is being conducted
  • Disclose any violence in the household and/or restraining orders
  • Disclose any challenging behaviours that the child may have.
  • Act respectfully towards staff members.
• If there are any questions, queries, concerns, changes, developments etc please contact  your therapist/support staff member to update them or ask any questions.
• If you have had a break in service then please contact your therapist/ support staff member again if they wish to make appointments or if they have any queries they would like to discuss.

Session Structure

Standard sessions run for 50 minutes, with 10 minutes allocated to writing strategies and tasks to practice until the next session. We encourage you to write down or film the strategies to help know how to implement them following session. Alternatively, discuss with your therapist if you prefer these plans to be sent via email following the session. Please discuss this with your therapist to determine the best way to share this information to support you and your family.

Cancellation Policy

Groups and Therapy Services Cancellations

If you are not able to attend your scheduled appointment, please contact us as soon as you know you are unable to attend. If you provide 24 hours notice prior to your appointment, then you will not incur a fee. If you give us less than 24 hour period we will charge an administration fee to partially cover the payment for the time your therapist allocated working with you. If no notice is provided and your therapist arrives at the session, then the full fee will be charged for your visit. For NDIS plan and agency managed clients please refer to your Service Agreement for cancellation charges. 

Therapy and Support Camp Cancellations

We require at least 4 weeks notice for cancellations for therapy and support camps. Cancellations with greater than 2 weeks notice will be refunded minus an administration fee of $200. If less than 2 weeks notice is given to cancel a place on camp we will charge 100% of the full fee.

For NDIS plan and agency managed clients please refer to your Service Agreement for cancellation charges. 

Payment Options

Private, Medicare and Self-Managed Clients

We collect all payments outside of therapy sessions to allow our therapists to focus on your child and family. Therefore, we ask all clients to complete a direct debit form upon entering our service. We will send you an invoice for you to pay as a direct debit to our account. If payment is not made within seven days then the invoice amount, we will remind you to make the payment. If payment has still not been received we will direct debited from the account nominated on the form. We will be required to put services on hold if an invoice hasn’t been paid prior to the next service being delivered. 

NDIS plan and agency managed clients

Individuals using NDIS plan and agency managed services are required to complete a Service Agreement with Calm and Connected, prior to services starting. A ‘Service Agreement’ outlines any camps, sessions and administration that will be included as part of the service delivery. This allows you, and our team working with you to have a clear understanding of what will be provided and the costs involved. 

Deposits for camps are required for NDIS Plan Managed clients to confirm a place. It is recommended that you forward the signed service agreement to your plan manager to help them support you with managing the funding by ensuring that adequate funds are reserved for the camp.

Resource Hire

We frequently loan items to families to trial with their child. This ensures that the piece of equipment recommended is the right fit for your child before you decide to purchase the item. It also may be that your child only needs the item for a short period, and so we are happy to loan the item whilst is needed. You will ask you to complete a loan form to help us keep track of our items, and so you are aware of any costs associated with damage or loss to the item. 

Communication with your Therapist

Our therapists are often on the road, so email is the best mode of contact, or please leave a voicemail/ send a text so your therapist knows to be back in touch with you. It is recommended that you talk to your therapist about how often you would like to be in touch and what is the best way of doing this, especially how you would like feedback following school visits. During the initial assessment, therapists may recommend a certain frequency of sessions. At this point further session dates and times may be arranged. However, if you feel you do not require frequent ongoing support and then you can contact us as you feel you need support.

Risk Acknowledgement

As with all services and things we do in life, there is always an element of risk. At Calm and Connected, our team work with you to reduce all foreseen risks to the best of our ability. We want to acknowledge potential risks of working together so that we can help you to make a decision to know if working with our team is going to be a good option for your family and your child to support their needs and growth.

• We do our best to support every person who we work with to meet their goals. We work hard to understand needs and challenges to know how to plan to best support. However there will be times when there are many factors impacting, which may mean progress is slower or plateaus. We will work with you to problem solve and continue to understand what is happening, and how to support your family and child as best we can. We unfortunately cannot guarantee progress or fast progress as people are complex and there are so many possible factors that could impact. 
• We have a range of different individuals who we work with with a range of needs.  Sometimes we have individuals who we work with who become physically or verbally aggressive or may run away (within session times or outside- regulation is something we are often working on with the children we work with). We work with these individuals to support them to regulate, and to protect their safety and those around them in these situations. If you (over 18)/your child has become physically or verbally aggressive during a session, we will talk to you to determine a plan to support immediate safety of all of those involved. This may include making the session time shorter, or longer to support.
• We work with individuals with complex behaviours. While we make every effort to make safety a priority, we cannot be responsible for things that are outside our control. You must tell us any cause for concern about you/your child’s behaviour if they are a violence or flight risk. It is essential that you are honest with us.
• All activities have a level of risk which we recognise and attempt to mitigate such as craft and use of scissors, or risk of falling during active games. There is a risk of injury participating in activities. If an individual injures themselves during a session our team have up to date first aid certificates to provide immediate first aid as require, including phoning for an ambulance or further assistance and we will contact you as soon as possible if you are not there (for example during school based sessions for children).
• If suicidal thoughts or self harm thoughts or actions are disclosed, if the person is under 18, we will inform their primary contact as soon as possible after this session. If there is a significant risk of suicide or self harm that becomes apparent when working with one of our team members, we would support yourself if you are over 18, with anyone you would like us to inform, or if under 18, the child’s caregiver and the child to access emergency support (ambulance, emergency department for immediate assessment and support).
• We are not a crisis support team and are only available to be contacted during business hours. If you, or your child require emergency support please see this link with further information on potential crisis support pathways. https://calmandconnected.com.au/do-you-need-urgent-assistance/
• We are not registered or qualified to prescribe medication, diagnosis any conditions or provide medical advice. Please see appropriate medical advice from your GP, psychiatrist or paediatrician for these services.

Feedback

We highly value receiving feedback and welcome any input on how to improve our service. We encourage you to speak directly with your therapist to provide any compliments or criticism, or be in touch with the Director, Kate Keisler with the contact details provided below. Otherwise we have a Customer Feedback Form available online under the ‘contacts’ page on our website.

If you have any questions about these terms of service, please do not hesitate to contact Director, Kate Keisler on 0430 645 086 or contact@calmandconnected.com.au