Meet the team
Who is Esmie?
Esmie has moved to New Zealand over two years ago with her family. She love to explore the world through the eyes of her two boys; Sean who is eight years old and Rudi who is five years old. She is believes a family centred approach is critical to the success of therapy. Working together with each family to unlock each client’s full potential.
Esmie completed her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Occupational Therapy in 2005 at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. She worked at a paediatric private practice and her interest developed in sensory integration therapy. She completed her Master of Science degree in Occupational Therapy in neurological and developmental development in 2013.
Esmie worked in sensory and developmental paediatric field since then. She is passionate about engaging kids in learning using all their senses. Esmie has worked with a wide variety of diagnosis and ages kids.
Esmie still dreams of completing her doctorate degree in the paediatric field of Occupational Therapy.
Who is Angela?
Angela moved to New Zealand from South Africa with her family in 2017. She loves being an OT, a wife and a mum to her two daughters. “I love the adventure of watching both my kids grow and develop in their own way”.
Apart from a BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy degree from the University of Cape Town, Angela also holds an internationally recognised postgraduate Sensory Integration Certification from SAISI, as well as a postgraduate certificate in Working with Personality Disorders from the University of Leeds.
Angela is a specialised Occupational Therapist with over 20 years of post-graduate experience, spanning clinical roles in the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand. She has spent the predominant part of her career working with children with special needs in various settings which have included private practice, hospital, community centres and schools as well as health and education departments.
Angela moved to the UK shortly after graduating where she spent some time working in mental health. In addition, she worked in a Children’s Community Centre providing inpatient and community services to children with special needs in the local borough.
Angela was the first occupational therapist for the borough’s newly established Autism Support Team. Here she led and facilitated the integration of children with ASD into mainstream school settings, mainly in and around south west London.
In South Africa Angela’s paediatric experience included working in private practice. Both in mainstream and special needs schools focusing on the assessment and treatment of a range of children with a variety of different diagnoses. She also maintained a close working relationship with Autism South Africa, supporting the delivery of focused teacher and parent training.
Angela has a love for teaching and training and is passionate about developing an awareness and understanding amongst caregivers, school staff and other health care professionals about the role of sensory processing in a child’s development, learning ability and overall functioning. She aims to create play-based, child centred therapy sessions that foster the development of skills, provide different sensory experiences, as well promoting the important role of carers and teachers in the lives of the children she works with.
Who is Caroline?
Caroline is certainly no Occupational Therapist however she is the founder of both The Speech Room and The Move Room with her background being in Paediatric Speech & Language Therapy.
Caroline tackles life with her two beautiful daughters at full speed. Ava who is 11 and Aubrey who is seven years old. Ava has had several hiccups over the last several years with profound hearing loss being the most life-changing experience of them all. Although Ava has a cochlear implant it doesn't give her access to the hearing world to support her speech development and therefore New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) is her main mode of communication. The family went through so many different emotions initially however they have discovered the beauty in NZSL and feel so fortunate to be part of this culture. This has shaped her into the Therapist she is today and helped her to connect with her clients and their families. With Ava in mind she wanted to be able to offer a multidisciplinary approach which is why she started The Speech Room and The Move Room.
Caroline spent just shy of 10 years working in a special school initially and then on to private practice when an opportunity she couldn’t pass up dropped into her lap (or in this case in her email inbox) and that was to open her own private practice (known as The Speech Room) based at The Connection in early 2018. The opportunity to continuously learn from the other Practitioners and work collaboratively at The Connection has been invaluable. Since then both The Speech Room and The Move Room have moved to their own premises located in Albany. This allowed for the growth of the two clinics and also provide more use of specialised equipment for the Occupational Therapist.
With Ava in mind she wanted to provide an occupational therapy service that reflected the high standard The Speech Room offers and with a lot of hard work and determination that was how The Move Room transpired.
Caroline is often involved in joint sessions (SLT and OT) offering support and recommendations around speech and language development.