Hi, I'm Sally
Your Early Education OT: seventeen years inside the room.
I have spent seventeen years inside early childhood education. Not visiting. Not consulting from the outside. Inside: building systems, leading teams, delivering training, standing in rooms with educators in communities carrying profound disadvantage, and learning, over and over again, that the adults surrounding children are the intervention. Everything else is secondary.
Before I built what exists today, I was the National Manager of Occupational Therapy at Goodstart Early Learning, Australia's largest not-for-profit early childhood provider, developing and delivering national professional learning across 650 early childhood services in every state of Australia and leading a team of OTs embedded inside 40 early learning environments.
I have consulted on NDIS policy reform, contributed to Reimagine Australia, and served as a Divisional Council Delegate with OT Australia. I have personally supported more than 120 early learning environments through my own consultancy.
That breadth is not a credential. It is context.
Clinical
Early childhood
Systems
Why it matters to you
Experience that shows up in your room.
I've been inside the room
Not as an observer. I have worked and journeyed alongside Early Childhood Professionals as an equal โ bringing a different lens to the work, not standing above it. When I walk into your service, nothing you show me will surprise me, and I am not here to judge it.
What this means for you โ you get a professional learning partner who already understands your world.
I've led this work nationally
As National Manager of Occupational Therapy at Goodstart Early Learning, I developed and delivered professional learning across 650 services in every state of Australia and led a team of OTs working embedded inside 40 early learning environments.
What this means for you โ I understand how change travels through an organisation, and what it takes to make it stick at the room level.
I understand what sits underneath behaviour
I have consulted on NDIS policy reform, contributed to Reimagine Australia and served as a Divisional Council Delegate with OT Australia, because I believe the work of understanding children belongs inside policy, not only inside services.
What this means for you โ the framework I bring is grounded in the best available evidence and translated for the reality of your actual day.
This is personal as well as professional
I am a mother, and motherhood has deepened everything I understand about regulation, co-regulation and what it costs the adult to remain present and responsive when they are stretched thin.
What this means for you โ I will never ask educators to embody something I am not willing to practise myself.
I'll never ask educators to embody something I'm not willing to practise myself.
Integrity isn't perfection. It's noticing when we drift from our values, taking responsibility, and coming back.
The journey
Seventeen years, one throughline.
2009
Graduated from Deakin University
With a Bachelor of Occupational Science and Therapy, November 2009 moved to Brisbane, for my dream job working inย early intervention alongside children with autism and their families.
Early career
Broadening experience
Moved to the Sunshine Coast and built experience across schools, community settings and private practice.
Sunshine Coast
Imagine Therapies & The Treehouse Initiative
Founded Imagine Therapies, with nine staff, and three locations across Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Co-founded The Treehouse Initiative (now STEPS Autism Treehouse), a not-for-profitย for children of all abilities to access sport, recreation and community. Programs established with Surf Life Saving Queenslandย and the Sunshine Coast Falcons.ย
National leadership
Goodstart Early Learning
National Manager of Occupational Therapy, delivering professional learning across 650 services and leading a team of OTs embedded inside 40 Early Learning Environments.
2016
Became a mother
An experience that deepened everything I understand about regulation, children's development and self-compassion. I returned to work 2-weeks after giving birth, not what I had intended, but an important part of my story.ย
2018
EECERA, Budapest
Presented the OT- educator led model to an international audience.
2019โ2022
Leading through COVID-19
Continued national leadership through the pandemic, supporting a distributed team of therapistsย and Early Childhood Educators across all states of Australia. Moved to online learning platforms, and reimagining what support looked like during this time. 2019, my son was born. Leading, and parenting through COVID-19.ย
Today
Your Early Education OT & Regulation Ritualsยฎ
Working directly alongside services across Australia to put evidence-based knowledge where it belongs: inside our Early Childhood Environments. 2025, Regulation Ritualsยฎ became an official trademark, recognising the significant infrastructure and impact of the course.ย Since the creation of Sally Galloway - Your Early Education OT, I have personally worked with 120+ Early Childhood Services. Something I am incredible grateful for, and proud of!ย
Qualifications & accreditations
Registered, trained and accountable.
AHPRA Registered OT Australia Dare to Leadโข Circle of Security CHIPPA Accredited Beacon House โ Trauma-Informed Environmental Rating Scales GROW Coaching SOS Approach to Feeding Learn to Play
and, personally
Motherhood deepened my passion for this work.
I'm also a mother. My children are completely different in temperament, development, bodies and how they experience the world โ what supports one does not necessarily support the other.
Parenting a child who experiences the world differently has made many of the ideas I teach professionally deeply personal. I know what it is to understand child development and still feel uncertain as a parent. I know what it is to notice that a child is working much harder than other people realise.
More than anything, motherhood deepened my passion for this work. It made me even more committed to helping the adults around children understand what they are seeing.
I will never ask educators to embody something I am unwilling to practise within my own relationships.
Where this began
A line of women who saw a need.
I believe this work started long before me, and I know it will not end with me.
My great-great-grandmother, Annie Dennis, founded the Annie Dennis Children's Home in Northcote, creating a place of care for children who needed it at a time when very few such places existed. My grandmother was among the first cohort of women to graduate as physiotherapists from the University of Melbourne, and went on to support children and families from her own home practice, quietly and consistently, for years.
I come from a line of women who saw what was missing for children and families, and built something in response. I did not fully understand that thread when I chose occupational therapy. I understand it now.
I feel extraordinarily privileged to continue that work.
The method
You don't need more pressure. You need a method.
Regulation Ritualsยฎ โ The Early Childhood Method is eight modules of evidence-based learning built entirely for early childhood education. A method grounded in the science of how brains and bodies work, translated into practice that becomes part of the way your team thinks.
Understand
Know why a child behaves the way they do, not just what to do about it.
Adapt
Build a practice that responds to what each child's nervous system is actually communicating.
Embed
Turn knowledge into ritual: consistent, sustainable, woven into the ordinary rhythm of the day.
What you get when you work with me
What you can count on from me.
Evidence grounded in real environments
Every framework I teach has been tested inside early learning rooms, not designed in a clinic and handed over.
A method, not a moment
Regulation Ritualsยฎ is an eight-module method designed to become part of the way your team thinks, built for the complexity of early childhood.
The science, translated
I hold the research so you don't have to โ taking what neuroscience, occupational therapy and developmental psychology tell us and making it genuinely usable in your context.
A partner who understands your world
I have led this work at a national level and I continue to work directly inside services โ from the policy table to the sandpit.
Professional learning that respects your expertise
I am here to give skilled, committed professionals the framework to trust what they are already seeing.
what's next?
My signature programs & ways to work.
Whether you're an educator, a leader, or a parent, there's a clear place to begin โ all built on the same evidence-based method.
Signature course ยท Start here
Regulation Ritualsยฎ โ The Early Childhood Method
Eight modules of evidence-based learning built entirely for early childhood, designed to become part of the way your team thinks.
For families
Regulation Ritualsยฎ at Home
The same science, translated for parents โ practical, everyday ways to bring calm, connection and co-regulation into family life.
For services & leaders
Consulting, Coaching & Audits
One-to-one coaching, sensory and inclusion audits, and support designed around your service, your team and your children.
In your service
Intensive Immersion
Time on the ground inside your environment โ looking at your team and children together, and leaving with a clear path forward.
Events & PD days
Workshops & Speaking
Keynotes, professional development days and team workshops that leave your people with a shared language and practical next steps.
Podcast
The Playful Practice Podcast
Practical professional development for educators, on the go. Conversations that turn the science of regulation into everyday practice.
Work with me
One clear place to start.
Start here
Regulation Ritualsยฎ โ The Early Childhood Method
Eight modules of evidence-based learning, designed to become part of the way your team thinks โ not just something they completed.
Explore the method โIntensive Immersion
Time inside your service, looking at your environment, your team and your children together, and leaving with a clear path forward.
Coaching & Audits
One-to-one coaching for leaders and teams, plus sensory and inclusion audits tailored to your service and your children.
Professional Development
Professional development designed around your specific context โ practical, evidence-based and built for the reality of your actual day.
Teams are saying things likeโฆ
โThe course increased our confidence in discussing the concepts as a team.โ
โWe came away with a clearer shared language.โ
โThe content helped us reflect more deeply on our everyday practice.โ
โI loved having the app on my phone, I could just listen on my evening walks!โ
โI am a visual learner, so having everything in a workbook was so helpful.โ
โLoved that my whole team was learning the same thing at the same time.โ
Your educators are already trying.
They don't need to work harder. They need someone who can help them turn what they already know into a practice they can sustain โ on the hard days as much as the easy ones.
