NEW Developmental Group for Hawkes Bay
Our aim is to provide support to neonatal families through the stress and anxiety of their journey which extends not only from the time they are in the neonatal unit but to the years which follow.
We are proud to announce a brand new Developmental Support group for those in the Hawkes Bay Region.! We’ve teamed up with Elen Nathan, an Occupational Therapist at The Playful Place. With her help, we’re now able to provide assistance to more families on a neonatal journey. 
This new developmental group is FREE and open to all premature and high-risk babies in who have been through a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) or SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit) and will provide a very valuable service for parents to get crucial free developmental assistance and advice for their babies.
We understand neonatal families can sometimes be reluctant to take their children to ‘normal’ playgroups, because their child is especially vulnerable to infections. This Developmental Group will enable early social interaction which benefits the babies and aids in development, whilst giving the parents some, well deserved, time to reduce anxiety from the stress of having a premature or high-risk baby.
This group is designed to be a safe space where parents and babies can come to share their journey and have some interaction that is controlled and safe.
- Occupational Therapist Facilitated Group led by Elen Nathan from The Playful Place
- Development Milestones Monitored
- Activities to promote Physical Skills, Social skills, Cognitive skills, Language skills
- Clean Safe Environment
- Play ideas for home
- Shared experience with other neonatal parents
- Please ensure you and your baby are well
Thanks so much for sharing your personal story!
We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions.
If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you.
Support Us
If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.
- The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives.
- As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.