Ashley Wilkinson is a practicing member of OT Australia and AHPRA and has a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy with research honours. Ashley is a Mental Health Endorsed Occupational Therapist and can see families using mental health care plans. She’s also trained in the Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) model for challenging behaviours
Ashley has over 10 years of experience with qualifications of note in Circle of Security (COS-P and COS-P Classroom), Cognitive Orientation to Daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP), SOS feeding, Occupational Performance Coaching, Developing Pretend Play Skills in children, DIR Floortime, Conquering the wees and poos and SleepAbility. Ashley was trained through Possums accreditation program in Neuroprotective Developmental Care (NDC) to support parents and babies.
Ashley became an OT because she wanted to help children achieve their goals in everyday activities. OT is the FUN in functional! She is committed to helping children and their families participate in, and enjoy, many of life’s adventures at school, home or out and about. One of her favourite places to work is in Kindies , where she enjoys sharing knowledge (both ways) with educators.
Ashley is passionate about working alongside First Nations families. She also has a passion for supporting mums and bubs in the early years, especially for baby play, sleep, movement and feeding difficulties. Her special interest area is neurodiversity (such as Autism and ADHD), attachment and supporting people with mental health and wellbeing.
As a practitioner, Ashley focuses on assessing the whole picture across daily activities and supporting children and caregivers to understand each individual child. She works collaboratively to help them by building skills, changing environments, advocating or providing equipment as some examples. She also spends a lot of time playing and building connections with families to help achieve the best outcomes.
In her spare time, Ashley works at a local university in the 0-3 year old developmental clinic. She loves taking on students at Youthrive and contributing to the future of OT.
