What to expect

Send the GMFCS level if known, a recent clinic letter, the last hip x-ray, current orthotics and equipment, any botulinum toxin or surgical history, and a short video of your child moving. A rehabilitation physician replies within 48 hours with what a block could realistically target.

If the reply is that a block is unlikely to add much right now — for example if surgery is planned within months — it will say that. A block timed badly wastes a family's money and a child's tolerance.

Physical assessment, hand function, communication and feeding where relevant, equipment review, and the goal-setting conversation with the family. Therapy starts alongside this rather than waiting for it to finish.

Children are usually tired and unsettled in the first days. It is a new place, a new language and a harder schedule than home, and it typically settles as the routine becomes familiar.

Three to five hours a day, adjusted to age and tolerance, in short sessions with breaks rather than long ones. Robotic gait work, hippotherapy simulator, hydrotherapy and hand training are scheduled according to the goals — not every child gets every modality.

The parent joins sessions through the block rather than only at the end, so that the home programme is something they have already done rather than something they have watched.

The goals set in week one are scored. You are told which were met, which were not and why, and what would be a reasonable target for a next block.

You leave with a home programme, an equipment and orthotic recommendation, and a discharge document written for a clinician in your own country.