Janelle Ford - Director / Founder (RN, IPN, MHN)

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A little bit about our founder and director.  Janelle is an award winning certified and CPD accredited clinical nurse educator with 20+ years of hands-on clinical nursing experience who holds several postgraduate degrees in various disciplines and whilst initially trained in general nursing (medical / surgical) Janelle's passion and focus lies within the mental health, disability, and maternal /child health sectors of which she has in excess of 14+ years practical experience.

Janelle is a highly experienced professional with certification and experience in critical acute self-harm wound management and treatment, child and youth mental health, adolescents, intellectual disability, forensics, medical and forensic management of sexual assault, anorexia nervosa and bulimia support, suicide prevention, addiction mental health, psychiatric liaison emergency mental health, immunisation, mental health assessment / triage and crisis Intervention (having undertaken post graduate training in mental health triage with the 'School of Health Sciences', University of Melbourne).  Janelle is versed in severe and complex case coordination and management and has also held an appointment as an authorised mental health practitioner with Queensland Health, her skill set is extensive, in addition to the above Janelle is also a 'certified' Autplay® therapist and master trainer in both LEGO® Based Therapy and the LEGO® Serious Play methodology.

During her career Janelle developed a love for precepting and began her progression into nurse education facilitating undergraduate nursing students (Griffith University), following that experience, Janelle completed a 'Certificate IV in Training and Assessment' (along with completion of the relevant updates over the years) to continue the journey of nurse educator, she is now the director of 'Progressive Play™ ' educating and delivering professional development training programs in creative therapy interventions (which are specific to the mental health / disability and education sectors) inspiring the future leaders of tomorrow to “be the change they want to see.”

Why?, because throughout all the years of working hands-on in the field the gaps in all sectors of the industry were becoming wider, not only did Janelle notice this throughout the sector as a professional, she noticed this as both a mother trying to support her son (who not only has a diagnosis of adhd and odd, but who also has an acquired brain injury as a result of an asthma attack in 2013), and as a sister (her younger brother who following a vicious assault in a suburban park sustained significant head trauma, which resulted in him suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder and a later diagnosis of schizophrenia ('treatment resistant'), despite the endless measures Janelle took to seek supports there simply were none that were realistic to the struggles that both her son and brother were experiencing. Janelle knew in her heart of hearts that there had to be a way that as an individual she could help to improve the therapeutic offerings in the sector nationwide and as clinicians, practitioners, professionals, and educators Janelle believes that we all have a duty of care to help fill those gaps.

How do we help fill the gaps? by being the best clinicians we can be, fill the gaps with quality professional education and development in varying therapeutic techniques and the gaps may just take care of themselves.  For far too long mental health and disability services have continued to rely on old school therapies and methodologies, and as mental health and disability services budgets decreased so did their service offerings and let’s face it not much has changed regarding service provision in the last 20 years. 

The country is in a mental health crisis, services are stretched as more and more people require assistance, there are simply not enough services or resources to fulfill demand. It is more important than ever that we (as individuals) help alleviate the need, it is time for change and that time is now!   

We can affect the most change by providing therapeutic interventions that benefit our clients / consumers / participants / patients (terms vary depending on service) overall wellbeing and that’s how Janelle got into 'LEGO Based Therapies', after much research and discussion with individual participants and consumers it was clear that many of the therapies currently available had a poor consumer satisfaction rate and when asked why that was, most adult participants / consumers stated that the therapies did not appeal to them and some had excessive amounts of ‘homework’ which was not attainable given that they were struggling to do their laundry, let alone undertake ‘homework’, the current therapies simply did not appeal to their intrinsic motivation or provide them with ‘joy’.  

When those same participants / consumers were introduced to LEGO Based Therapies what they said next was astounding, the LEGO bricks provided the intrinsic motivation they were searching for and provided them with hours upon hours of mindfulness techniques that helped them to alleviate symptoms of racing thoughts, anxiety and depression and it was an activity that they could easily undertake in their own home, an activity that didn’t feel like ‘homework’ an activity that led them into social groups of their own undertaking and allowed them to be free of their worries / concerns.  For autistic children and children with other related conditions (dyslexia, dyscalculia, hyperlexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder) who were participating in our LEGO Based Therapy groups the results were equally as clear, their communication and social skills had improved along with their self-esteem and their overall feelings of belonging. 

That was Janelle's lightbulb moment, her Aha... moment!  She had to get this therapy modality into the hands of every practitioner, clinician, professional and educator immediately, this needed to be shared with the world but most importantly this needed to be shared with participants / consumers / clients and patients nationwide.  We are very excited to offer therapeutic intervention training in 'LEGO Based Therapies' for health practitioners / professionals, teachers, parents, and carers, it really does have the power to create insight and change for participants / clients both children and adults alike and that’s worth getting excited about.