Welcome to the Mummel Road Podcast- learn more about Emily, Founder of Mummel Road!

I never would have imagined that my small business where I support families who have children with additional needs would develop into a space where I was interviewing the most amazing people for a podcast and offering families from all over Australia and the world online information and resources to support their child when they need it the most.

Who am I though? What do I do? How did my business merge into the online scene and why did I start a podcast? Listen to find out more.

I am so excited to have you here. You are now part of the Mummel Road online community. This is  a place where you can find support, information, and comradery. Join the Mummel Road Members Hub http://www.mummelroad.com.au or join me on social media @mummelroad.

I can't wait to get to know you all. 
Em 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:05

Hi everyone, it's Emily from mumble road. I've been so fortunate to be able to create this podcast series where I interview individuals from a huge range of backgrounds. They all have one thing in common, they either related to somebody with a disability or they work with somebody with a disability. I have loved getting to know the people that I've interviewed. Before you take a listen to them, I'd really like you to hear some of my background to get a better understanding of what motivated me to do this podcast series and why I have a real interest in this area. I really hope that you enjoy the series that I've created and I look forward to creating more. My name is Emily. I am a developmental educator and I live in Maitland. I grew up in a small regional town called Golden and I had a terrific childhood I loved growing up in the countryside. I went to University in Sydney and in Sydney met my future husband. We've travelled around the world, we've had a number of terrific jobs. We've raised three beautiful children. And here I am living in the Hunter Valley. I love exercise. I really love walking and keeping active. I really enjoy seeing my family, my family are very important to me. I have one brother that lives overseas and one that lives in Sydney. And my dad lives down on the south coast of New South Wales families. Probably the most important thing to me. I really enjoy research and learning. And I love spending time with my friends going out to coffee. We go to wineries being from the beautiful Hunter Valley. And I love mostly building relationships with terrific people, which I'm so fortunate to be able to do all the time. I have my husband, Tim. And we have three children. I have Charlie who's 11 Monty who's nine and Annabelle, who is six. My mom was a school teacher, she was also a principal and she was terrific in her job. I looked up to her and I spent a lot of time in her classroom absorbing her professional expertise. I got into teaching because of my experience seeing my mom as a teacher. And I guess I believe I've got a really great natural rapport with children. And I've got a really great rapport with their families, which is part of being a good teacher. It's not just about the child, it's about the families as well. I have been a classroom teacher for 11 years. So I've worked in New South Wales primary schools, Queensland primary schools, I worked in an international school. And then I changed career a little bit and became qualified with early childhood and did a family daycare in Brisbane. I've always had an interest in children who do learn differently. My eldest son received a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder at the age of three. I was not working at that point in time. So I took some time to become specialised in all aspects of ASD, from diagnosing to education, to inclusive education, to therapy supports and I did a master's degree in autism studies to become a specialist in that area. I have recently finished a graduate certificate in positive behaviour support from Flinders University. That degree enables me to put into practice clinical aspects of positive behaviour support in the home setting and in school settings. I've been predominantly working in school settings and it was really great to become more specialised and proficient in supporting families as well. So it's it's really interesting to be on the other side of the fence now, where I get to support the family as they send their child to the school environment. I'm really fortunate to be able to also still support children in school, the school environment. This is an area where there is a skills shortage. We find that positive behaviour support is an area of specialty and it's an area that many people feel nervous about getting into. I feel really comfortable at support. putting families in their home environment. And what I see is that there are really long wait lists for qualified practitioners in this field. And it's really important because we establish a useful and practical plan for families to implement when they have children with complex behavioural needs, we step out exactly what families need to do to support their children. We also step out exactly what teachers need to do to support that child in the school environment, I started mammal road, because I was interested in having my own business where I could cater for the needs of the families in my local area. I am loving my work. However, because of time limitations, I can't see all the families I want to I have created a huge amount of online resources for families to access, who don't live in my local area, or who don't have time to wait on the really long wait lists that are everywhere. I was really interested in starting a podcast for my website, I wanted to create an online community for families, like my own, who had a child with additional needs. I wanted to create a community where people could immerse themselves with other families who were in a similar situation, I'd started the podcast to get insight from professionals within this field, but also parents within this field because it's a it's a fine balancing act to ensure that you have the insight of parents that live this life every day, but also the professionals that support them every day. I am really loving interviewing people, I feel that once people begin to listen to the podcast and understand how important it is for insights and opinions to be heard in this space, more and more people will want to be a part of this podcast. And I really encourage professionals in this field, or people who have a child or a relative with additional needs to contact me because that's how these sort of communities become important and grow. When people put their hand up and say, I've got a great story. I'd love to share that with you. This is so important. One a really important aspect is when people have positive stories, they may say at my local supermarket, somebody said to my child, well done for speaking to me or they got down to my child's level and approach them really calmly and softly. And that's the sort of thing that we want to be promoting. We want to be promoting inclusive, encouraging positive reactions to individuals with additional needs, specifically individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Now that you know a little bit more about my background, let's get started on the podcast interviews. I know you'll get a lot out of these interviews because the people I chose to speak with have such a rich insight into the disability and education sectors. You may have some other suggestions of people you would like me to interview, you may have some feedback. I would love it all you can find me on Instagram and Facebook at mammal road. I hope you enjoy this podcast series. Happy listening. Bye for now.