Understanding Alfie

January 13, 2025

Two afternoons a week, 8 year old Alfie attends after school care at Our Lady of Good Counsel Forestville. Led by his passion for garbage trucks and imaginary play, he has a special ability to draw other children into his fantasy worlds and games. “I’ve never come across a child who is so intuitive, said School Care Coordinator, Bronte. “He knows his likes and dislikes and is so driven by these.” Today, Alfie is thriving at after school care, “but it hasn’t always been amazing,” says Alfie’s mum, Antoinette. “It’s been a bumpy road … but good has come out of it all.”    

When Alfie first started at the OSHC 21/2 years ago, he was in a mainstream class at school. After being diagnosed with autism and ADHD, Alfie transitioned into a support unit class. For Antoinette, keeping Alfie in a mainstream OSHC environment was a priority. “We didn’t want him to be segregated in an OSHC environment as well.”   

For Alfie, being around lots of children and noise was challenging. “I knew we weren’t supporting him the way we needed,” says Bronte. “
We were really struggling to connect with him and understand his needs. We would say things like, ‘Come on Alfie, you can do this,’ completely overlooking the fact that it was the environment that needed changing rather than him.”   

After a particularly challenging term, Bronte recalls emailing her Practice Manager. “I told her I was struggling and didn’t know what else to do.” For Alfie, this email was the moment that everything changed. “We came up with a plan to meet with Alfie’s parents,” Bronte recalls. “Initially, it was very emotional and hard. I’d known Alfie’s family for two years and it was really difficult to say, ‘We’re really struggling. How can you help?”  

Alfie’s mum, Antoinette applauds the approach that was taken by Bronte and the team. “They looked at the situation and said, ‘I don’t know the answers, but I want to find out,” says Antoinette. “We brought in an external behaviour support therapist, who focused on a positive behaviour support framework that targeted strengths and abilities, rather than assuming the worst.”   

After a series of meetings, training sessions and conversations with Alfie’s allied health team, strategies were implemented to support Alfie.
“We started incorporating really simple visuals for Alfie,” says Bronte. “One of our biggest challenges was providing him with a space that was away from the other children where he could regulate himself. We had supervision issues because he would go into places where we couldn’t see him. Now we use these portable dividers and Alfie has a little mat. When he needs time to regulate and decompress, he goes to ‘Alfie Island’.”   

The language that the OSHC team use with Alfie has changed significantly. “After learning about choice fatigue, we have changed the way we ask Alfie questions,” says Bronte. “Asking him an open ended question like, ‘What do you want to play with?’ is really overwhelming for him. Now, we will say something like, “Would you like to play with the cars or the trucks?” Limiting Alfie’s choice helps him have a greater sense of control and structure.”  

Bronte says that the team have worked hard to understand Alfie and how he interprets the world. “We knew basic things about autism and ADHD but we needed to get to know Alfie.

Two children might have the same diagnosis, but every child responds so differently to things. There’s a lot of trial and error involved, but the more we strive to be flexible and meet each child’s unique needs, the better each child will feel in their environment.” 

Bronte says that catering for a child’s needs can mean changing aspects of the service and this requires compromise. It isn’t easy, hard work is involved, but at the end of the day, it is about creating better childhoods and life outcomes.   

In a letter to Forestville OSHC this year, Antoinette thanked the team for persevering and turning Alfie’s situation around.   

“We really felt after your intervention that it was the start of a turning point for us. Please know that by stepping in and advocating for inclusion, you’ve helped create a wave of change that otherwise might not have happened for us. To see what Alfie is getting out of attending OSHC this term – developing friendships, building a healthier sense of self-esteem and truly belonging – makes me realise that he could have missed all of this if this wasn’t for you and the team.”  

Today, the team at Forestville OSHC are more committed than ever to celebrating diversity and educating children about various learning challenges and medical conditions. “We use videos, worksheets and open conversations to encourage empathy and understanding,” Bronte says. The humility and perseverance of the team throughout their journey with Alfie is already having flow on effects to other children who access the service.