Paediatric Occupational Therapist

Paediatric Occupational Therapist — Neuro-Affirming Practice

Bloom Play Studio | Essendon, Melbourne

Full-time or part-time (0.6–1.0 FTE) | Permanent

Play is how children make sense of the world. Come help them bloom.

Bloom Play Studio is a warm, play-based therapy practice in Essendon supporting children and young people (0–18) and the families around them. We’re growing our team and adding Occupational Therapy as a core service line — and we’re looking for a paediatric OT who wants to shape it from the ground up.

This isn’t a “fit the child to the clinic” kind of place. We work through play, follow the child’s lead, and see neurodivergence as a difference to be understood and supported, not a deficit to be fixed. If that’s how you already practise, you’ll feel at home here.

What you’ll be doing

• Delivering play-based, child-led OT for children with a range of developmental, sensory, motor and regulation needs

• Working alongside our play therapists, counsellors, speech pathologists and psychologists as part of a genuinely integrated team

• Partnering with parents and carers — coaching, explaining, and building their confidence, not just handing over home programs

• Completing functional assessments, NDIS reports and goal-focused therapy plans that families can actually use

• Liaising with kinders, schools and early learning centres to support children in the environments they live in

• Helping us build the OT service: resources, processes, sensory spaces and the way we talk about OT to families

Neuro-affirming practice is non-negotiable

We’ll want to see it in how you work, not just on your CV. For us that means:

• Prioritising regulation, connection and autonomy over compliance or “looking typical”

• Presuming competence and honouring all forms of communication and play

• Sensory needs treated as real needs, not behaviours to extinguish

• No compliance-based or masking-focused approaches

• Strengths-based language in your sessions, your reports and your conversations with families

• Openness to learning directly from neurodivergent voices and lived experience

About you

• Bachelor or Master of Occupational Therapy and current AHPRA general registration

• Around 3–5 years’ paediatric experience (we’ll consider strong earlier-career OTs with the right values and a hunger to learn)

• Confident with sensory processing, motor development, self-care and play-based intervention

• Experience writing NDIS functional capacity assessments and progress reports (or keen to develop this with support)

• Warm, playful and grounded — comfortable getting on the floor and equally comfortable in a tough conversation with a parent

• Current Working with Children Check, NDIS Worker Screening Check (or willing to obtain), and Australian driver’s licence

What we offer

• Salary in line with the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, above-award for the right person, plus super

• Manageable caseload with protected time for report writing, planning and thinking

• Regular clinical supervision, peer reflective practice and an annual professional development allowance (insert amount)

• A calm, beautifully set-up studio space in Essendon — no hot-desking in a hospital corridor

• Flexible days and hours; genuine part-time options

• A small, values-led team where your ideas will actually change how things are done

• The chance to build a service line, not just fill a diary

How to apply

Send your CV and a short cover letter (a page is plenty) to [email protected] Rather than telling us you’re neuro-affirming, tell us about a time your practice shifted because of it.

We welcome applications from neurodivergent practitioners, First Nations people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and people of all genders and identities. If you need any adjustments to the application or interview process, just let us know.