Ask a Therapist: Consent and Service Agreement

Version 2.0. Last updated: 24/09/2026

TPP Projects Pty Ltd, ACN 652 696 190, ABN 88 652 696 190, trading as The Play Way.

Part 1: What you are agreeing to, in plain words

Ask a Therapist is coaching for you as a parent or carer. It is not therapy for your child.

• You send a message. A qualified allied health professional writes back with general guidance, ideas and things to try.

• We are supporting you to support your child. Your child is not our client and we are not treating them.

• We have not met your child or assessed them. Everything we say is based only on what you tell us.

• We cannot diagnose anything, write a report, or replace your child's treating team.

• Replies come within one business day, Monday to Friday. The inbox is not monitored overnight, on weekends, or on public holidays.

• Fair use applies. This is considered support, not an unlimited on demand service.

• This service is not for emergencies. If someone is in danger, call 000.

If that is not what you need, Ask a Therapist is probably not a good fit, and we would rather you did not buy it.

Part 2: The agreement

1. Who we are and who you are

1.1 This agreement is between you (the Member) and TPP Projects Pty Ltd, ACN 652 696 190, ABN 88 652 696 190, trading as The Play Way.

1.2 It governs your use of Ask a Therapist, a paid plan delivered through The Play Way Hub at hub.theplayway.com. Full Hub membership is included for as long as you hold the plan.

1.3 The Play Way Hub Membership Terms and our Privacy Policy also apply. If they conflict with this agreement, this agreement applies for anything to do with Ask a Therapist.

1.4 You must be at least 18 years old. Ask a Therapist is intended for people in Australia, and we do not give guidance to anyone outside Australia.

1.5 You must be the parent, legal guardian, or a person with parental responsibility for any child you discuss with us, or have the written authority of that person. By using Ask a Therapist you confirm this is true.

2. What Ask a Therapist is

2.1 Ask a Therapist gives you non-urgent written access to a qualified allied health professional, for parent coaching and education. Your question goes to Kait Cummins first, and she passes it to whoever on the team is the right person to answer it.

2.2 The purpose is to help you understand your child's development and to build your own confidence and skills as their parent. We give general guidance, practical strategies, ideas for play and routine, and help you make sense of what you are seeing at home.

2.3 You are our client, not your child. The relationship formed under this agreement is between us and you, the adult member.

2.4 Ask a Therapist is delivered as text, voice notes or short video, through the Hub messaging function. It does not include phone calls, video calls, home visits, or in-person appointments.

2.5 What you can send in one message:

• up to 1,000 characters of text

• up to three attachments

• photos, video, or audio you record in the browser

Video is limited to the first two minutes. Audio is limited to the first five minutes. If you send something longer, we show you the shortened version and ask you to confirm before it sends.

2.6 Once you send a message you cannot edit it or delete that single message. You can delete a whole conversation. Section 9 explains what happens when you do.

3. What Ask a Therapist is not

3.1 Ask a Therapist is not an assessment, diagnosis or treatment of your child, and it is not occupational therapy or any other clinical service delivered to your child.

3.2 We will not, through Ask a Therapist:

• assess, diagnose, or rule out any condition, developmental delay, or disability

• provide a therapy plan, treatment plan, or home program tailored to your individual child

• write letters, reports, forms, or evidence for the NDIS, Centrelink, schools, kindergartens, courts, or any other body

• give an opinion on whether another practitioner's advice, assessment, plan or report is correct or appropriate

• give advice about medication, dosage, supplements, or medical treatment

• provide mental health treatment, counselling, or therapy to you or to anyone in your family

• provide crisis, emergency, or after hours support

• give advice about anyone located outside Australia

3.3 If you need any of the above, we will tell you and point you toward the right kind of help. That may include your GP, a paediatrician, or a referral to an allied health professional.

4. Limits you need to understand before you agree

Written support has limits. By agreeing to this you are accepting the following.

4.1 We cannot see your child. We rely on what you tell us and what we can see in what you send.

4.2 Written words can get misread. Tone, nuance and emphasis do not travel well in text. We may misunderstand you. You may misunderstand us. If something we say does not sit right, tell us and we will try again.

4.3 General guidance may not suit your child. Everything we suggest is general in nature. You decide whether to try it. You know your child. We do not.

4.4 We may be missing something important. Because we cannot examine your child, there may be an underlying medical or developmental issue that a conversation will never surface. Never delay seeing a doctor because of something we have written.

4.5 We may decline to answer. If a question needs an assessment we cannot do this way, or sits outside our scope of practice, we will say so and refer you on rather than guess. This is the service working correctly.

4.6 Technology fails. Messages can be delayed, lost, or fail to send. Do not assume a message has been read until you have a reply.

5. Response times and availability

5.1 You can send messages at any time. Replies are written during business hours only.

5.2 Business hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm AEST or AEDT, Monday to Friday, excluding Victorian public holidays.

5.3 We aim to reply within one business day. A message sent on Friday afternoon will usually be answered on Monday.

5.4 Ask a Therapist is not monitored outside business hours. Nobody reads your messages overnight, on weekends, or on public holidays.

5.5 If the person answering you is unwell or away, someone else on the team may respond, or your reply may take longer. We will let you know.

5.6 We email you when we have replied. That email tells you there is a reply waiting. It never contains your question, our reply, what you told us at intake, or anything you attached.

6. Fair use

6.1 Ask a Therapist is designed for genuine, considered support. It is not an unlimited on demand service, and it is not a replacement for having a therapist.

6.2 We apply a fair use allowance to the number of new topics you raise each week. The current allowance is shown in the Hub. A topic is a new subject, and it runs as a conversation thread.

6.3 If you go over the allowance we will let you know, and your remaining questions will roll into the following week. We will not silently ignore you.

6.4 We may suspend or end your access if usage is sustained well beyond fair use, if the service is being used instead of clinical care you have been advised to seek, or if the conduct rules in section 11 are breached. Where the issue is volume rather than conduct, we will raise it with you first and give you a chance to adjust.

7. Safety, crisis and escalation

7.1 Ask a Therapist is not an emergency service.

If you or your child are in immediate danger, or someone is seriously unwell or injured, call 000.

Other support available right now, any time:

7.2 We do not read messages in real time. A message telling us about a crisis may not be read for hours or days. Do not use Ask a Therapist to raise anything urgent.

7.3 If we form a reasonable belief that a child is at risk of significant harm, we will act as Australian law requires, which may include contacting child protection authorities or the police. Where it is safe and appropriate to do so, we will tell you first. Where telling you would increase risk to a child, we will not.

7.4 If you tell us something that suggests you, your child, or another person is at risk, we may contact emergency services or another appropriate service, and we may end your access and refer you to a service better suited to what is happening.

7.5 We may pause or end Ask a Therapist at any time if we believe it is no longer the right thing for you, including where it appears to be replacing care you need in person. If we do this, we will explain why in writing and refund any unused portion of your fee.

8. Photos, videos and information about your child

8.1 You may be invited to share a short photo or video to help us understand what you are describing. This is optional. You never have to.

8.2 If you do share images or video:

• your child must be fully and appropriately clothed

• you must have the consent of every other person with parental responsibility for that child

• you must have the consent of any other identifiable person in the image

• do not send images of any child who is not yours

8.3 We store any image or video you send as part of your record, handle it under section 9, and use it only to provide Ask a Therapist to you. We will not use it in marketing, training, social media, or any public material without your separate, specific, written consent.

8.4 We may decline to accept or may delete any image that does not meet 8.2, and we may end your access if inappropriate material is sent.

8.5 If you and your child's other parent or guardian do not agree about your child's care, please tell us. Do not use Ask a Therapist to gather material for a family law dispute. We will not take sides and we will not produce documents for court.

9. Your information and your records

9.1 What you tell us about your child's development, behaviour and health is health information. We handle it under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. Our Privacy Policy sets out the detail.

9.2 We keep a record of your conversations and of the guidance we gave you.

9.3 Where a record relates to a child, we hold it until that child turns 25. Otherwise we hold records for seven years from your last contact with us.

9.4 Your conversations can be seen by the person answering you and by Play Way staff who need access to run the service or handle a complaint. We may also share information where the law requires it, where there is a serious risk to someone's life, health or safety, or where you ask us to in writing.

9.5 The services we use to run Ask a Therapist are listed in our Privacy Policy, together with what each one receives. Some of them may store or process information outside Australia. Where that happens we take reasonable steps to make sure it is handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles.

9.6 Deleting a conversation hides it from you and from our staff straight away. It does not erase the messages or attachments at that moment. We hold them for the period in 9.3, then destroy them or permanently remove anything that identifies you.

9.7 If you want your information removed sooner, email ask@theplayway.com and we will remove it. We will keep only what our record keeping obligations require.

9.8 You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. Email ask@theplayway.com and we will put it together for you. We respond within 30 days. If a request takes a lot of work we may charge a reasonable fee, and we will tell you the amount before we start.

10. Fees, renewal and cancellation

10.1 Ask a Therapist costs $79 a month, charged in advance to your nominated payment method. Full Play Way Hub membership is included.

10.2 It renews automatically each month, with a minimum three month commitment for the first three months, until you cancel.

10.3 From time to time we may invite someone to try Ask a Therapist free of charge. A trial is by invitation only and is not available on request. If we invite you to one, we will tell you at the time how long it runs and what it includes. You still have to agree to this document before your first message. Clauses 10.1 and 10.2 do not apply during a trial.

10.4 You can cancel at any time after the first three months, in your account settings or by emailing ask@theplayway.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the month you have paid for. You keep access until then.

10.5 When your access ends you can no longer open your conversations or add to them. We still hold them under 9.3. If you rejoin, they become available to you again. Please save anything you want to keep before your access ends.

10.6 Fees already paid are not refunded when you cancel, except where the Australian Consumer Law requires it, or where we end the service under 7.5 or 10.8.

10.7 Ask a Therapist is not a rebatable service in Australia. No Medicare rebate is available. NDIS funds cannot be used. Private health rebates are not available.

10.8 If we discontinue Ask a Therapist, we will give you at least 30 days notice and refund the unused portion of any fee you have paid.

10.9 We may change the price with at least 30 days written notice. If you do not want to continue at the new price, cancel before it takes effect.

11. How we treat each other

11.1 We will be respectful, honest, and clear about what we can and cannot help with.

11.2 You agree not to:

• abuse, threaten, harass or discriminate against our team

• share, publish, screenshot, or repost our messages anywhere, including social media, other online groups, or to other people, without our written consent

• present our general guidance as an individual clinical recommendation for your child, or use it as evidence to any third party

• use Ask a Therapist on behalf of another family, or share your account

• ask us to do anything that would breach our professional obligations

11.3 The content of our replies is our intellectual property. You can use it in your own home with your own family, freely. You cannot reproduce it, sell it, teach it, or use it in your own practice or business.

11.4 We may end your access immediately, without refund, for a breach of 11.2.

12. Liability

12.1 Nothing in this agreement limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

12.2 Ask a Therapist provides general guidance. You are responsible for deciding whether to act on anything we suggest, and for the care of your child.

12.3 To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability for any claim connected with Ask a Therapist is limited to the greater of the fees you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose, or $500.

12.4 Where we are liable for a failure to comply with a consumer guarantee, and the law permits, we limit our liability to supplying the service again or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

13. Complaints

13.1 If something goes wrong, tell us first. Email ask@theplayway.com and we will respond within five business days.

13.2 You can also raise a concern about a registered health practitioner with Ahpra (ahpra.gov.au, 1300 419 495), or with your state health complaints body. In Victoria that is the Health Complaints Commissioner (hcc.vic.gov.au, 1300 582 113).

13.3 You can raise a privacy concern with us at hello@theplayway.com, or with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992).

14. Changes to this agreement

14.1 We may update this agreement. Changes take effect when we publish the updated version at theplayway.com.

14.2 Where a change materially affects your rights, we will email you at least 14 days before it takes effect, and ask you to accept the new version before you keep using Ask a Therapist.

14.3 We record which version of this agreement you accepted, the exact wording shown to you, and the date and time you accepted it.

15. General

15.1 If any part of this agreement is unenforceable, the rest still applies.

15.2 This agreement is governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia.

15.3 Sections 8, 9, 11.3, 12 and 13 survive the end of this agreement.

Part 3: Consent

By ticking the box in the Hub you confirm that:

• You understand Ask a Therapist is coaching for you as a parent. It is not assessment, diagnosis or therapy for your child, and your child is not being treated.

• You understand Ask a Therapist is not for emergencies, is not monitored outside business hours, and that you should call 000 if anyone is in danger.

• You agree that The Play Way can collect and hold health information about you and your child so we can answer your questions.

• You have read and agree to this Consent and Service Agreement and the Privacy Policy.