For 16-year-old Jade from Wollongong, independence was the goal.
Simple everyday activities like zipping up a jacket, cutting food at dinner, folding clothes and styling her hair all mattered because they represented something much bigger – doing more for herself.
To achieve those goals, Jade travelled to Sydney to complete CPA’s two-week HABIT-ILE intensive.
Rather than practising each goal from day one, Jade’s therapists first worked out exactly what was getting in the way.
To help Jade develop the ability to cut hard foods with a knife and fork, they didn’t begin with a plate of food. Instead, they explored the most comfortable way for her to hold cutlery, built grip strength using play-based activities, and developed the grip strength and stability needed to keep food steady while cutting.
As Clinical Lead and Occupational Therapist Ella Teague explains:
“We don’t even touch the goal until we’ve built those really core foundational skills first.”
Each new skill built on the one before it, gradually creating the foundations needed for the final task.
As Jade’s skills developed, so did her independence.
One of her goals was learning to zip up her jacket independently. By breaking the task down into smaller, manageable steps and practising the skills that sat underneath it, Jade not only achieved her goal – she surpassed it.
By the end of the program, Jade could zip up her jacket while walking – something that hadn’t even been part of her original goal.
Jade also achieved her goals of folding and putting away her clothes independently and made significant progress towards cutting hard foods with a knife and fork.
For Jade, the program wasn’t simply about ticking off goals. It was about developing practical skills that would help her be more independent at home, school, and in the community.
Graduation day is about much more than celebrating success.
Each participant first demonstrates every one of their goals to their family while their therapist explains how each skill was achieved, the strategies that proved most effective, and how those same techniques can be continued at home.
After the individual handover, every participant chooses one goal to demonstrate for the wider group.
For Jade, the choice was easy.
She proudly zipped up her jacket in front of everyone—a goal she had worked incredibly hard to achieve and one she had ultimately surpassed by learning to do it while walking.
For Ella, moments like these capture what HABIT-ILE is all about.
By breaking complex goals into manageable steps and giving children repeated opportunities to practise meaningful skills and succeed, everyday tasks that once felt difficult become achievable.
For Jade, those small wins added up to something much bigger: greater independence.
