Support at Daycare & Early Learning
Early childhood educators are asked to support children with increasingly complex needs, with very little specialist time and no clinical training budget. We work alongside centres in the room, not from a report sent afterwards.
With a centre, or with one child
Centre-wide consultation
We work with the centre itself — room setup, routines, transitions, mealtimes, staff training and behaviour approaches that work for the whole room. Paid by the centre, benefiting every child in it.
Support for an individual child
Where a family engages us for their child, we can attend the daycare with the family's consent — observing in the setting, coaching the educators, and making sure home and daycare are running the same plan.
The parts of the day that go wrong
Sensory-friendly rooms
Noise, lighting, visual clutter, layout and the position of the quiet space. Most rooms can be made significantly easier to regulate in without spending anything, and the effect is felt by every child in them — not only the one who was struggling.
Transitions
Arrival, tidy-up, outside time, and the walk to lunch. Transitions cause a disproportionate share of difficult moments; visual schedules, warnings, and a consistent sequence fix a disproportionate share of them.
Mealtimes & feeding
Fussy eating, sensory-based food refusal, oral motor difficulty, self-feeding skills and seating. Plus how to run a mealtime that does not turn into a standoff.
Toileting readiness
Signs of readiness, why a child who is ready at home is not at daycare, sensory factors, and coordinated plans so both settings are doing the same thing.
Behaviour & regulation
BCBA-informed, function-based plans that early childhood educators can actually run in a room with fifteen other children — including biting, hitting, elopement and shutdown.
Communication & AAC
Supporting children who are not yet speaking or who already use a communication system, so it travels with the child instead of stopping at the daycare door — modelling, visual supports and staff coaching. Formal <a href="/services/aac-assessments/">AAC assessment</a> arrives with our speech-language service.
Practical, on-site and repeatable
Observation in the room
We watch a real session — arrival, a transition, a meal — rather than working from a description.
Recommendations you can act on
Split into what can change today, what needs a small purchase, and what needs a policy conversation.
Staff training
Short, practical sessions for educators, built on the situations happening in your rooms right now.
Follow-up
A return visit to see what stuck, what did not, and to adjust. One-off visits rarely change practice; the second visit is where it holds.
Daycare supports — common questions
Can you come to our centre for a child a family is already seeing?
Yes, with the family's written consent. This is often the most effective version of the work, because the strategies that were built at home get taught directly to the educators who have to run them.
Do you offer training for our whole staff team?
Yes. Sensory processing, regulation and co-regulation, function-based behaviour support, mealtimes and communication are the most requested topics, and we tailor sessions to what your rooms are actually dealing with.
Are you a replacement for the Early Intervention or preschool support programs?
No — we complement them. Nova Scotia has publicly funded early intervention services, and where a child is eligible those should absolutely be used. We are useful when there is a waitlist, when a centre wants support for the room rather than for one child, or when a family or centre wants specific clinical input sooner or more intensively.
How much does centre consultation cost?
It depends on the size of the centre and whether you want a one-off assessment, a training session or ongoing consultation. We quote before anything is booked, and the first conversation is free.
Talk to us about your centre
Book a free 20-minute consultation and tell us what is hardest in your rooms right now.