Nutrition Support for children and families

We pride ourselves on offering expert guidance to parents and children to help them manage specific nutritional concerns. With a combined 70 years of experience in the field, we have the knowledge and skills to offer you and your child the very best of care and advice you can trust.

Our Clinical Team

Kathy Beck

Kathy is an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) with over 20 years working in paediatric food allergy. Kathy is the recognised paediatric allergy dietitian in Queensland regularly providing lectures in paediatric food allergy to dietetic students, dietitians, general practitioners and paediatricians. Professionally, Kathy is the Chair of the Dietitian Committee of the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA). In this role, Kathy works with other ASCIA medical professionals to support health professionals working in food allergy and families living with food allergy.

Infants and children with food allergy are told to avoid identified allergens. This can lead to nutritional deficiencies if adequate replacements are not made. In addition, the child with food allergy may struggle to participate in family meals. Kathy’s philosophy is to concentrate on what children with allergies can eat.

Improve your confidence in preparing meals and providing a tasty, nutritious and safe diet for your child by making an appointment today. Read More

Fiona Nave

Fiona has worked as a clinical and community Dietitian in the UK and in Australia over the last 20 years, working with children and families from within hospitals, special schools, GP surgeries and childcare centres. Fiona is particularly passionate about working with children with restrictive diets (or fussy eating), special needs or unhealthy weights. These three things can be in isolation or often combined and Fiona sees a range of children with sensory or developmental delay and disabilities.

Fiona works with families to help increase enjoyment of healthy/everyday foods, rather than removing particular foods, instigating diets or focusing on weight. By supporting families in this way, mealtimes can be enjoyable and kids can grow to have positive relationships with all foods and their body’s.

Fiona has worked as a clinical Dietitian in the UK and in Australia over the last 19 years. This includes working in hospitals and special schools managing children with high nutrition needs and unhealthy weights.

With a passion for normalising healthy eating, Fiona works with children and their parents to help food become a an enjoyable family experience. Fiona is particularly passionate about working with children with restrictive diets (or fussy eating), including those as a result of sensory or physical delay, such as ASD, SPD, ARFID, CP or other intellectual disabilities. These kids often come with weight concerns (either higher or lower weighted bodies) and Fiona works with families to help support each child towards being healthy, whilst not focusing on the scales or weights. Read More

Fiona graduated with a Masters in Nutrition and Dietetics from Griffith University in 2002 and also has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Food Science and Nutrition) and an Arts degree (psychology) from the University of Queensland. She is an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD). As a mother of two young children, Fiona knows all the practical tricks to help kids eat healthier, and ideas to help manage behaviour around this. Fiona loves helping parents wean their infants onto healthy diets and give them the confidence to manage the ‘terrible twos’ (and threes, and fours….!).

Fiona recognises that eating well is not as simple as just buying groceries. Many families are torn between healthy eating and the realities of juggling work, family, extended family, school, medical appointments, sport and community commitments alongside preparing food. Fiona will work with you to help create realistic goals that improve your child’s diet to help them grow and develop to be their best. She will support you and your child to expand diet variety and help to increase confidence in experimenting with new foods, and enjoying meal times together.

Jacqui Palmer

Jacqui is an experienced accredited practising dietitian (APD) who has dedicated her career to working with children. She has extensive experience in feeding concerns linked to autism and ADHD, as well as allergy, intolerance, and gastrointestinal symptoms. Jacqui is trained in Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) feeding therapy and has an interest in links between the gut microbiome and mental health. Her PhD looked at the effects of modifying the microbiome of children with autism, aiming to improve behaviour, gastrointestinal symptoms, and quality of life.

Jacqui adopts a family centred approach, focusing on practical strategies to help translate nutrition diagnoses into manageable steps that families can follow.

Our Education Team

Professor Robyn Littlewood

Dr. Robyn Littlewood has been a paediatric clinical dietitian for more than 20 years. Along with her role at ChildD she is the Chief Executive Officer of Health and Wellbeing Queensland. Prior to this she was the Director of Health Services Research at the Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH). Robyn was also the Director of Dietetics and Food Services for almost 10 years at QCH and the former Royal Children’s Hospital.

Robyn is an Adjunct Professor, The University of Queensland, and has held many other influential roles such as Board Director, Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) (retired 2018). Robyn has completed both a Masters of Medical Science and PhD in the area of Paediatric Nutrition, Graduate Certificate in Executive Leadership and is currently completing an MBA.

Continuing professional education for all health professionals has always been a focus for Robyn. She recognised the need for a training course in paediatric dietetics which led her to conduct the first National Paediatric Dietetics Training Course in Australia partnering with the DAA in 2016. This course has been held biannually in various states 8 times to over 250 health professionals, all evaluated with outstanding results.

Robyn is a mother of three adult boys (twins included) and has experienced first hand the challenges and opportunities of feeding infants (3 at once) through to hungry, active teenagers. Her commitment to setting up good healthy eating patterns early in life has been applied equally and as passionately with her own boys as it has for every single patient she sees.

Robyn’s goal is that each and every person (infant, child or adult) be afforded an equal right to good health and opportunity to live their life to its full potential.

This work involves the age-old principles of balance, moderation, lifestyle and supporting the entire family to good health and staying that way. There is no gimmick to this. There is no quick fix, magic pill or diet drink to good health. In obesity, the faster you lose weight, the quicker you will put it back on. The best part of being overweight or obese is that it is reversible and fixable.

The philosophy of ChildD is that change is imminent when an individual is armed with the right knowledge, support and empowerment leading to a renewed personal commitment and self-confidence. Read More

Book an appointment with one of our caring, professional team members today. Contact Us Now!