There are many conditions that someone might have that require the support of one or more of the allied health professions.

People may be experiencing chronic or acute physical problems that will need the help of a physiotherapist. Other people might have hearing difficulties who need the help of an audiologist and/ or a speech and language therapist.

Many people with pervasive developmental disorders such as autism, dyspraxia and ADHD have multiple areas of need. People with multiple areas of need ideally require a team of allied health and/ or education professionals to support them and help them achieve the most they can.

Ultimately, each and every person who needs help is an individual who has a unique profile. Your individual needs will determine which of the therapies you need.

It is not always possible to determine how each person will respond to therapy and there is often more than one approach within each therapy area that different professionals have expertise in. Research shows that all these therapies are beneficial, but some people may respond better to one approach than another. For this reason, it’s not always possible to say right away whether this professional’s approach will be the best one for you.

An important thing to remember when embarking on any therapy journey is the ‘plan, do, review’ approach: that is, your chosen therapist should inform you of their plan and approach, you then try it and after an agreed time frame you both review its success from yours (the client’s) and their (the practitioner’s) perspectives. That way you can both make informed decisions about whether this approach is working for you or whether you need to try a different approach (whether with the same, or a different, therapist).

This open and honest process helps you be committed and develop the trusting relationship that is needed between you and your therapist/s.

All the allied health professions and psychologists are required to be registered with a professional body allowing them practice using the UK protected professional titles.

Overseas qualified therapists also require registration with a professional body.

This means that the professionals listed on AHTNetwork have a set standard they must adhere to and they must continue to undergo training and professional clinical supervision on a regular basis.

All therapists listed on the Allied Health and Therapy Network directory are verified as belonging to a professional registration body.

Our verification process ensures that we only list therapists who have provided proof of a relevant qualification and proof of registration with a professional body. Once a therapist has been through our verification process, we will display a verification stamp that you can see on their profile as an indication of their professionalism. We will signpost their professional body and how you can verify their registration details with their professional body.

Overseas qualified and registered therapists are colour coded differently from UK registered professionals so you can easily distinguish between the different registration countries.

We allow overseas registered therapists to list on our directory as long as they can prove they hold a current professional registration in their qualifying country. We feel it is important to allow overseas registered therapists to list on our directory as they will practice in the first language of a client and may be able to provide stronger levels of support in those clients’ first languages.

There are various professional bodies.

The professional body sets the standards that the therapists must work to, including providing their code of ethics and establishing a complaints procedure.

Only UK registered therapists can use certain professional titles. For example, only a language therapist registered with the Health Care Professions Council can use the titles: Speech Therapist or Speech and Language Therapist.

You may come across other language professionals on our site calling themselves Speech Pathologists or Logopedas. Speech Pathologist is a term commonly used in Australia and the United States. Logopeda, or similar, is the title used across most of Europe.

For the benefit of the members of the public searching for help on our website, the professional specialism will be listed next to the title if the therapist is an overseas registered professional (e.g. Logopeda – specialist area: speech, language and communication).

Being registered/accredited with a professional body means that a therapist has achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved and recognised by their (country based) professional body. It ensures that the therapist is who they say they are, and they have the qualifications required to practice in their profession.

AHTNetwork lists lots of allied health (and associated) professionals nationwide, so we understand that with all the choice available, it might be difficult to decide what you want and who you'd like to go and see.

Obviously, you may already have a good idea of the primary areas of need you need help with, so there’s a drop down of the different therapy areas to help you narrow down your search for the relevant professionals.

Factors such as what language you want your support in will necessarily be high on your list.

• Our member’s listings state the languages they practice in.

When you meet with one therapist, they may help you identify other areas of need you may have. They will be able to help you locate another therapist with a different specialism using our member to member contact, or they can conduct a search with you to identify another professional.

We recommend you contact a few therapists and have an initial discussion with them to get a feel for how they approach a problem. Most therapists will offer a complementary telephone discussion to establish whether they have the expertise to help you with your individual problem.

Useful things to ask them could include:

• How will they approach your particular problem/ what can they do to try and help you with it?
• Is there a specific approach they take/ programme they use when working with someone with your particular problem? What does that look like?
• Where will sessions take place? (some therapists come to you/ others have clinics); others work remotely/ online.
• What are their costs and what is included in their costs (session charges on a website may look expensive, but they may also include the administrative paperwork that is generated from therapy sessions. They may also include ‘catch-ups’ between sessions;
• On the other hand, charges may look cheap but not include any of the ‘extra’ work). Ask them if they charge extra for travel and/ or the administrative tasks related to sessions (all registered health professionals are required to take detailed notes about each session they deliver).
• How long is a typical session and how many sessions would they recommend? (this can sometimes be difficult to answer as everyone is an individual and responds in different ways, but some specific therapy approaches do have a general ‘timeframe’. To give you a more accurate response to this, the therapist may need to do some assessment first).
• And, it is very important for you to ask the following:
  • Is your DBS up to date?
  • Is your registration up to date?
• If they respond no to either of these questions, please let us know at: hello@ahtnetwork.com, as we’ll need to contact them also.

• As the allied health professions are considered standard therapies, you can. You can also get support for some of them through schools who buy in services from some of these professions (e.g. educational psychology, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, specialist teachers including dyslexia assessors etc).
• However, NHS waiting lists can be very long and, although a school service can be effective, the caseloads in schools tend to be large. Therapists are often stretched and cannot give the intensive 1:1 therapy that someone might benefit more from if they have a more severe need and need 1:1 support.