Helping Clients Practise Their Therapy Goals Between Sessions: What’s in Scope for Support Workers?

For most families and carers, therapy doesn’t feel like something that only happens in a session. Lessons learnt in sessions are used in everyday life too. These are the moments where new skills are tested and where progress can feel slow.

At Care Squared, we often hear the same question from parents and carers alike:
What can support workers realistically help with between therapy sessions?

Understanding the scope of support workers can help parents and workers work together confidently. The time between appointments is crucial for progress and understanding how the support provided connects with NDIS occupational therapy and other NDIS allied health services helps everyone work with clarity and clear expectations.

When roles are clear, therapy goals become a part of everyday life and feel manageable instead of overwhelming.

Why Progress Often Happens Outside Appointments

Therapy sessions are structured, focused and led by experienced professionals. They introduce strategies, build understanding and set clear goals. But change doesn’t happen within those sessions.

After an appointment, participants are back in their everyday environment. They work through routines, transitions and expectations that differ from therapy schedules. Goals can feel disconnected from daily life, and that’s where support workers can help. Support workers provide the reinforcement clients need between sessions, by helping them practise consistently in real situations. Over time this helps skills feel natural and easier to learn.

How Support Workers Fit Within Therapy Plans

Support workers are an important part of a participant’s wider support team. They supplement learning done in therapy sessions, rather than replacing clinicians.

Within NDIS occupational therapy plans, support workers may assist by:

• Encouraging practice of daily living skills during usual routines
• Using prompts or tools recommended by therapists
• Supporting consistency with agreed sensory or behavioural strategies
• Helping participants apply skills in community or home settings

This type of support works best when it follows the guidance set by therapists delivering allied health services, and when feedback flows both ways.

Seeing Small Steps Clearly

It’s important to be able to see small improvements in participants, but also normal to feel unsure of any progress. Progress in therapy isn’t sudden, it’s slow, gradual and about small changes that happen over weeks.

Support workers notice the little shifts that don’t show up in one appointment, like:

• A participant attempting a task they used to avoid
• Less prompting needed for a familiar routine
• A reduction in frustration during a transition
• An increase in eye contact or verbal initiation

Support workers can notice and then share these observations with clinicians, which helps therapists refine the next steps. Instead of rigidly following a plan which may not fit, the approach becomes responsive and tailored.

The feedback support workers provide ensures that practice between sessions isn’t just a checklist, but instead an adaptive and flexible plan tailored to the participants’ needs.

Keeping the Balance Between Support and Therapy

Clearly understanding the scope of support workers is important for both support workers and families of participants to know. Support workers are supplementary to therapists and meant to help participants practice in real world situations, not to deliver clinical interventions or adjust therapy goals.

Support workers should not:

• Modify goals or exercises set by clinicians
• Introduce new methods without clinician guidance
• Diagnose or interpret therapeutic outcomes independently
• Assume responsibility for clinical decision‑making

Instead, support workers reinforce activities and strategies set by clinicians. This keeps the focus on consistency and safety, while enabling clients to practise in natural contexts.

For example, a therapist might introduce a strategy for reducing hesitation during social interactions. A support worker can remind the participant about the strategy during a community outing. They can observe how the participant responds and then share that information with the clinician. This collaborative loop makes sure practice stays aligned with therapeutic intent.

When support workers understand their role clearly, the entire support system functions cohesively and clearly.

Support Workers as Bridges Between Sessions

Support workers can help bridge the gap between sessions and home. Parents and carers often describe support workers and the people who help carry strategies learnt in therapy to real life.

This role is important because:

• Participants feel less like they’re switching worlds between sessions and home
• Skills are practised in environments that matter
• Support workers become reliable reinforcers of consistency

Therapists get feedback grounded in real behaviour rather than observations limited to appointment moments

What Makes Reinforcement Effective?

In between sessions practice can be helpful instead of overwhelming, and to do this support workers should:

Use consistent language and cues

When a strategy uses specific words, phrases or visual tools, repeating them consistently helps participants make connections between sessions.

Follow up on established routines

If a therapist suggests practising hand washing with a visual step sequence, a support worker can follow that same approach so the participant sees repetition and continuity.

Create moments for safe practice

Encouraging practice in low‑stress situations before trying it in more challenging contexts helps build confidence. For example, trying a new communication strategy in a familiar setting before attempting it in a larger group.

Check in with parents and carers

Regularly checking in informally ensures everyone shares a common understanding of progress and has expectations.

Collaboration Makes Support More Effective

When everyone involved in a client’s care works together, clients tend to have a seamless experience. Overall, this leads to families feeling supported and included in the process, plans becoming more efficient, but without placing pressure on carers.

Support That Makes Sense in Real Life

Progress doesn’t happen only within appointments, it happens in everyday situations. Support workers play a key role in bringing therapy goals into those moments. By reinforcing strategies recommended in occupational therapy NDIS and other allied health services, they help make those goals achievable in the real world.

Support between sessions shouldn’t feel overwhelming. With clarity about scope and ongoing collaboration, it becomes a powerful tool for meaningful progress.