Meet the team

When your child is first admitted to Southampton Children's Hospital they'll be given a named consultant. Dr Georgina Bird-Lieberman is the lead consultant for children’s neuro-rehabilitation, but the team of consultants will all be involved in your child’s care. 

We're here to listen and support you in your decisions as well as give guidance and help with issues including:

• education
• medication
• finances - including benefits, respite services, leisure activities and support groups.

We'll provide you, your child, your family (and anyone else you choose to be involved in your child's care) with information about your child’s condition and treatment.

We work with your child to improve their physical ability, and increase what they are able to do. This could be by practising moving an arm or leg or, with varying levels of support and assistance, we may work on sitting, rolling or standing - this will depend each child. Find out more about our work here.

We help to assess and support your child with their:

• range of movement
• fine motor skills (small movements such as picking up small objects) and gross motor skills (bigger movements such as rolling or sitting)
• sensory processing
• attention and orientation
• memory
• reasoning skills
• coping and social interactions.

We support everyday activities such as getting dressed, playing and eating and work towards community integration and preparing to go home. Find out more about our work here.

We support your child’s communication, including their:

• understanding
• words and vocabulary
• voice
• speech sounds
• listening
• reading and writing
• social skills 
• non-verbal communication.

We also assess your child’s swallowing skills and their ability to eat and drink safely. This includes looking at oral and pharyngeal skills, general alertness and awareness, positioning (alongside physiotherapy and occupational therapy) and mouth care.

We recognise that when your child has had a brain injury or illness it can affect everyone in the family. We're here to offer emotional support to young people and their families, for example providing a space to think about what has happened and sharing ideas around adjustment and coping. We can also explore how your child’s injury or illness may be affecting their thinking skills (attention and memory), emotions and behaviours and offer some ideas around how to manage this.

We monitor your child’s nutrition and hydration alongside their height and weight, and help to find the best way of make sure they are having enough to eat and drink. This may include alternative ways of eating and drinking such as naso-gastric tubes or supplements.

We provide support to children and their families using play. As well as organising and supervising daily play activities in our play areas, we can work to prepare your child for any tests such as scans, blood tests and operations. We provide distraction therapy to help your child to cope with these tests.

Our youth worker supports young people (age 11 and over) by acting as their advocate, helping the clinical team and family to see things from the young person’s point of view. They will support your child emotionally by spending time with them, talking and listening and doing a range activities that your child enjoys.