Year-End Gratitude And New Beginnings

Dana's reflections on 2025.

danabaltutis.com,  mytherapyhouse.com.au, https://mytherapyhouse.com.au/your-childs-therapy-journey/ https://www.danabaltutis.com/services

Transcript

Series On Inspiring Parents

Neurodivergence Conference Insights

Following A PDA Family

Centering Lived Experience

My Therapy House Milestones

Writing Attuned Workplaces

The DOLLI Assessment Journey

NDIS Audit Win

Purpose, Legacy, And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Hi everyone, and welcome to this final episode of the Empowered Parent Podcast for this year. I'm not entirely sure what 2026 next year will hold for the podcast, but I do know that I'm taking a break. And before I do, I just really wanted to pause and say thank you and share what the year has meant for me. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for sharing episodes with others, and thank you for reaching out with your reflections and messages. This year has been full and meaningful. I began this year with completing my first full series, interviewing inspirational parents and people who work closely with parents. These were people whose stories stayed with me and who I knew would be grounding and inspiring for others to listen to. In August, I attended the Neurodivergence and Wellbeing Conference in the Gold Coast. And while I was there, I intentionally organized interviews with presenters who inspired me personally and who I believed had something important to offer parents and professionals. I asked them about their neurodivergence, their lived experience, and how being neurodivergent has supported them to be who they are in their lives. These conversations were honest, affirming, and deeply human. Thank you all for being part of the Empowered Parent podcast journey. And my most recent series followed Paige Carter and her family as they navigated life as parents of a child with a PDA profile and their experience of unschooling or de-schooling during term 4. This was a powerful series. It showed what can happen when a child's well-being leads and when adults are willing to slow down, listen, and trust the process. This series was raw and it was extremely insightful, and I hope it helped many parents navigating PDA and navigating schooling. Across all of the episodes and all the series this year, my hope has been simple. To offer parents and professionals insight into the lived experience of being neurodivergent, to highlight the positive aspects, not just the challenges, and to remind us that yes, there are hard moments and it is also all okay. At the heart of everything, I believe is this that the children that we live with and work with and interact with, they are our teachers. It is so important that we follow their lead rather than rushing them or trying to make them be who we think they should be. I truly believe that the children in our lives are here for a reason. They are here to teach us more about ourselves as parents, as professionals, as aunties, uncles, grandparents, and humans. Personally, this year I continued my work as the director of My Therapy House, a small, home-like practice in Adelaide, South Australia, that supports neurodivergent children and their families. I wanted children to be our guides. My Therapy House is a niche practice with a strong relationship and strengths-based approach and a team with specialist knowledge and skills grounded in the DIR floor time approach. In July, my therapy house celebrated 10 years, and to mark that milestone, I wrote a book called Start Where You Are, Build What You Love. The aim of this book is to support Allied Health professionals to navigate what it's really like to set up and grow a practice. I covered topics such as starting before you feel ready, clarifying your values, building a team, setting boundaries, navigating money and sustainability, trusting yourself and learning as you go. This book was written from my heart and from all the experience I've gained being a business owner and a coach. It's an honest book about building something heart-led without burning yourself out or losing who you are in the process. And then from that book came the inspiration to write another one. My second book is called Attuned Workplaces. This book is about celebrating neurodivergence in the workplace. I wrote it because neurodivergent adults deserve to feel understood, safe, and valued at work. The book explores what attunement really looks like in everyday workplaces: communication, sensory needs, autonomy, relationships, safety, belonging. It's about moving beyond inclusion and creating environments where people can be their authentic selves and thrive. This year, my team at My Therapy House also work very closely with Michelle Ricamardo, a DIR floor time speech pathologist and trainer based in Chicago, and Simmer Gerber, a co-founder of the Perfectum Foundation in New York. We worked with Simmer indirectly through Michelle. We met with Michelle every month on a Sunday morning to deepen our understanding of a new communication assessment they both have developed together. And that's why I bring Simmer's name into it because when we work with Michelle, Simmer is always there in the background. The assessment is called Dolly, which stands for Developmental Observation of Language Links to Intervention. It's a relationship-based, foundation-based communication assessment that helps us truly see where a child is at developmentally. Michelle will be visiting Adelaide in South Australia in November 2026 to introduce the dolly and to showcase the kind of valuable information it can give us about the children we work and live with. It helps professionals and parents set more authentic and congruent goals by meeting children where they are at rather than where we think they should be. It also provides meaningful information, like I said, to parents so they can better understand their child's development and how to best support them at home and in everyday life. This introduction will be relevant not only for speech pathologists but also for occupational therapists, early childhood educators, and anyone working with young children. I strongly encourage parents to attend as well. And finally, the beginning of this week, to finish the year, my therapy house went through its NDIS interim audit and passed with flying colours. So what that meant was we had an external auditor come on site for two days and look at all our processes, interview all the parents, interview myself as their director, interview all our admin staff, and also make sure that we were doing what we say we're doing and our clients were happy with our service. Thankfully, it was great, and I'm overjoyed that all our processes in place and our clients are extremely happy and grateful for the services we provide them. So thank you to everyone who contributed to this process and continues to uphold the standards and care that makes our work so deep and meaningful. I believe that when we follow our hearts, support one another, continue to learn, stay focused, and stay connected to why we do this work, we continue to show up not only for ourselves, but for the children and families we work with. Feel free to reach out. I work with business owners around their mindset and also supporting them to implement practical strategies. Yes, our work can feel heavy at times. It can feel like the NDIS goalposts are always changing and we don't know what the next chapter will bring. However, we know why we're here. We're here to make a difference in the world. We are here to leave a legacy. And we are here to support one another. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a restful and peaceful holiday period, and a wonderful new year. Thank you again for listening, for sharing, and for being part of this space, being part of this wonderful community that supports our children, parents, families, and also our teams. My hope is that this podcast has enlightened you, inspired you, helped you reflect, and supported you to be the best version of yourselves for yourself, for your family, for your clients, and the families you work with. Take care and God bless.