Dr Anne Gordon, consultant occupational therapist: Children with movement difficulties can face challenges in everything they do.

Dad: How are you going to open it? How did you do it before?

Dr Anne: Occupational therapists work with them to help them become more independent. Evidence shows that for hand and arm function, intensive bursts of therapy work best, but this is rarely available in the NHS. We have created the Evelina REACH programme to enable children to access these evidence-informed bursts of therapy. The way it works is the children come and see us once a week, they see their local therapist once a week, and the remainder of the sessions are delivered at home, led by the parents who we coach throughout the programme.

Dad: We had a kind of target to hit in terms of numbers of sessions and minutes for those sessions and I find that really useful.

Dr Anne: Based on our detailed assessment of the child, we set three individual aims, and we monitor progress using a logbook.

Therapist: He's starting to get to the stage where he'll change the position to make it a bit easier, so I was thinking of adding that as a new aim for this week.

Dr Anne: Typically the children are seated. And that's really important too, so that the children can see both of their hands as they're playing and moving and learn about what their hand can do. It's really important that the children have fun through the programme.

Therapist: That's cool, Alfie!

Mum: It is a big commitment and that is exactly the right word, we both work so there's lots of juggling around with timetables and rotas and things to get to the appointments.

Dad: But that is one of the benefits of the REACH programme, it's so clear what you need to do.

Dr Anne: When the programme is ended we see the families again at six weeks and six months to reassess, so we can monitor progress.

Mum: I think it is actually just how it changes your way of looking at everyday tasks and everyday toys.

Dad: What are my feelings about the REACH programme? It's just absolutely the best intervention we've had for our son, is the short and long of it.

Voice-over: The Evelina REACH service at Evelina London Children's Hospital provides rehabilitation for children with or at risk of hemiparesis or unilateral cerebral palsy.

We offer assessment, advice and evidence-informed intensive upper limb programmes. We deliver programmes in partnership with families and community-based services to maximise outcomes of intervention, share skills and knowledge, and support rehabilitation closer to home. This video explains how we can work together to support children and families around their rehabilitation.

The philosophy of the service is working together. We will collaborate by sharing knowledge about the child, for instance how they are getting on at home, nursery or school and what their strengths and interests are. As a specialist upper limb rehabilitation service we will support you by sharing our knowledge of the latest research evidence and how to translate this into practice. Together we can make a lasting difference by supporting children and families in meeting their goals. This is achieved through delivering rehabilitation at evidenced levels of intensity. By coming together with the families we can achieve higher levels of intensity and dosage.

What to expect. What we will do. We will coordinate appointments with you and the family in advance. Based on assessment of the child, we'll prescribe a programme and discuss the expectations for you and the family. We will conduct the standardised assessments before and after the programme. We will set goals for the rehabilitation, share them with all partners and review them weekly and we will set up a log book to record all sessions.

What we expect from you. To work with us to establish goals in the child's rehabilitation programme. You'll deliver sessions, usually once a week depending on the programme, liaise with Evelina therapists in weekly updates to inform the rehabilitation programme, and complete an online feedback survey to help us continue to improve the service. You are always welcome to join any appointment. In addition to intensive programmes we also offer consultation and advice. For more information about making a referral please see our Evelina REACH web pages.