Little Lamb Occupational Therapy

As we come to the end of another blessed year at Little Lamb Occupational Therapy, we gathered to celebrate our year-end function with hearts full of gratitude 🙏✨

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy” – Psalm 126:3

To our amazing therapists, admin team, and finance staff — thank you for being faithful stewards of the work God has entrusted to us 🤍 Your compassion, dedication, and servant hearts make a lasting difference in the lives of our children and families every single day 🐑🌿

We are so thankful for God’s guidance, provision, and protection throughout this year, and for the privilege of walking this journey together as a team ✨

📅 Please note:
Little Lamb Occupational Therapy will be closed from 20 December and will re-open on 5 January.

We wish each Little Lamb, parent and colleague a restful, and joyful, festive season 🎄🙏 We look forward to an amazing year next year🤍

Our beautiful thank-you gifts for all our schools and our wonderful referring doctors, pediatricians, and educational psychologists are finally here!
And wow — Caramella Cakes absolutely brought my vision to life! The personalised touches are just perfect and so meaningful. 💛✨

If you’re looking for stunning cakes, cupcakes, or cookies this Christmas or for any birthday celebration, go check out Caramella Cakes’ gorgeous designs on Instagram:
👉 https://www.instagram.com/caramellacakesct?igsh=d2NxOWp0dTV6bmJv

Or contact them directly at 083 645 8324.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Little Lamb mommies and grandmothers!
🌷 Thank you for all the love, care, and devotion you give to your little Lambs every day.🐑

“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”
— Proverbs 31:25

“A mother’s love is the first gift we know—and the one that lasts a lifetime.”

Dear Parents and Little Lambs 🐑,

As we approach the end of 2024, we would like to take a moment to reflect on the incredible year we’ve had together. This year has been filled with growth, breakthroughs, and countless moments of joy. We are deeply honored to have had the opportunity to work with your children and to collaborate with the many schools, doctors, and families that form such an essential part of their development. Thank you for trusting us to be a part of your child’s journey.

The Little Lamb team is truly grateful to be part of your “village,” working together to help every child reach their full potential. Your ongoing support and partnership mean everything to us, and it allows us to continue doing what we love.

As we look forward to the festive season, we will miss the smiles, hugs, and giggles that brighten our days. But we also wish you a season filled with rest, love, and joy as you spend time with your loved ones.

We will officially close for the holidays on [insert closing date] and reopen on 7 January 2025. We are excited to welcome everyone back in the new year, refreshed and ready for another amazing chapter.

From all of us at Little Lamb, we wish you a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year!

With gratitude,
Anlika Maré
& The Little Lamb Team

We are seeking an enthusiastic and skilled Occupational Therapist to join us in January 2025.

TURN AUTISM AROUND

Turn Autism Around is a program created by Doctor Mary Barbera in the USA. She is the mother of a son who has been diagnosed with Autism early on in his life and it became her life passion to find ways to help him communicate with the people around him and the outside world and also be able to learn new information and skills.

I (Anlika) did the training in both the early learner and intermediate course in 2021-2023 and this has taught me how to work with both low-functioning and non-verbal children to higher functioning children (whether on the spectrum or not). This course has become a valuable part of the Little Lamb Practice as we were already able to help many children on the spectrum reach many milestones that almost seemed impossible. This program can also be taught to the parents to do with the children at home and I have at times provided this training to parents on request.

All the therapist at Little Lamb gets trained in this program within their first week of working at the practice and it is used daily together with other OT techniques by us all. If you as a parent are interested, you are welcome to go listen to Dr Mary Barbera’s podcast called Turn Autism Around on Spotify and she also has a book and many YouTube videos available.

🥸WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?🎒

Our therapist (Dána Marillier) has started her Sensory Integration journey in March and completed her SASIC 1 course! We are so excited that she was able to attend this week online course and wish her all the best in this journey as we just know that this will absolutely grow her as a therapist!

“Sensory Integration is the neurological process that organises sensation from one’s own body and from the environment and makes it possible to use the body effectively within the environment. The spatial and temporal aspects of inputs from different sensory modalities are interpreted, associated and unified. Sensory integration is information processing… The brain must select, enhance, inhibit, compare and associate the sensory information in a flexible, constantly changing pattern, in other words the brain must integrate it.”- Jean Ayres

Difficulties experienced in Sensory Integration dysfunction may include:

• Clumsy behaviour; child may trip / fall often, bump into things etc…
• Postural control may be poor.
• Sensory defensiveness, i.e. fussy dressers (only cotton, seams turned out), fussy feeders, uneasy on jungle gyms/avoid swings, unsettled in noisy environments (e.g. parties/ shopping malls), etc.
• Sensory dormancy (often resulting in seeking behaviours), i.e. constantly moving, fidgeting, touching, making noises, crashing into things, not hearing when being called (despite normal hearing), incomplete work in class due to “daydreaming”, etc.
• Difficulties co-ordinating the two sides of the body and/or crossing the body midline, as seen when swimming, riding a bicycle, eating with a knife and fork.
• Difficulties planning, sequencing and executing novel (new) movement patterns. Takes longer than average to learn new tasks such as riding a bicycle.
• Speech and language development may be affected.
• Poor self-care.
• Difficulties developing and sustaining relationships and poor social skills.
• Difficulty with focus and attention.

- All of this information and more can be obtained from the SAISI website https://instsi.co.za/what-is-sensory-integration/

PLAY AS A MEANS TO EMOTIONAL WELLBEING ADVANCED COURSE (a.k.a Play therapy)

What an absolute privilege to be able to have attended the final HPCSA accredited advanced play therapy course presented by i2we at the Little Lamb OT practice in March 2023.

I (Anlika ) attended the final play therapy course about two weeks ago and was trained on how to provide play therapy to children with different problems such as
-Bullying
-PTSD
-Anxiety
-Depression
-Trauma (divorce etc,)
-Death and bereavement etc.

I have since then also had training sessions with the rest of the Little Lamb therapists to carry over some of this valuable knowledge to ensure they will also be able to benefit from this information offered to me through this training!

I have come to enjoy working with the different techniques made available by play therapy as it ensures even bigger possibilities for treatment as many children need both OT in the sense of improving scholastic skills etc. and PLAY THERAPY as other emotional problems such as bullying etc. then surface in therapy.

💻WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?🎓

WOW! What a journey it has been! I spent the past +-8 months with my head in the books and pouring every spare minute into researching and writing my Sensory Integration protocol as part of the process of finishing my SAISI journey in becoming a fully certified Sensory Integration Therapist. To become a certified SI therapist you are required to attend a week online course, three weeks of in-person trainings, write and submit a 50-page protocol (like a thesis), and hand in a fidelity measure over the course of a maximum of 7 years.

I have over the past 3 years done SASIS 1-3 (out of 4) and spent many hours in the pursuit of gaining as much knowledge on Sensory integration as possible in order to not only provide the best therapy to all Little Lamb kiddies but also use this knowledge to train all Little Lamb Therapist while they are still in the early stages of their Sensory Integration training.

I submitted my protocol on 15 March and feel so appreciative of the great understanding and knowledge the process of writing a protocol has offered me!

WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?

Little Lamb OT has partnered with Jacques Saayman from Ireland (the son of a frail care patient at Eureka Retirement Village) to raise money and then offer free OT groups for the elderly patients in the frail care units at Eureka. The vision is to provide group occupational therapy sessions to a group of individuals with Alzheimer’s and other difficulties, and also raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and how Occupational Therapy services can help.

Our goal is to reach R50 000 and to date, we have raised about R9000 and had 4 group sessions. The patients absolutely love the groups and we have learned a lot from one another and already formed a tight bond within the group.

I am extremely excited to be involved in this amazing cause and absolutely love working with the elderly as I learn a lot from them as they will frequently give me life advice and just show absolute love and compassion towards me regardless of them not knowing me for too long.

I also offer OT to other patients at Eureka from time to time whether it is to provide information regarding adaptations that can be made within rooms to assist the client or to work on their independence in their daily activities such as dressing etc. It is a great adventure!

If you would like to follow and/or contribute to this wonderful cause please follow this link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/715594510675609/permalink/715636857338041