Our Practice

Danny’s Place was established in 2015, with the vision of providing a centre for excellence in the area of childhood and adolescent weight management, in South Australia. We have created an environment that is sensitive and mindful to those carrying excess weight.  Danny’s Place provides families with an integrative approach to weight management with engagement across all team members. Our clinicians work as a team and will draw on each other’s expertise when appropriate, to provide you with the most all-inclusive care.

Danny’s Place @ The Parade

Practice Administration Opening Times

Parking

There is free on street parking available surrounding the clinic, directly on The Parade and also in surrounding side streets, a short stroll away. Please note that the on street parking is timed at 2 hour parks, which we find is more than enough time for your visit with us.

Public Transport

There are options for public transport, please visit the Adelaide Metro website for all options. There is a bus stop directly next to clinic and across the road, the bus stop number is Stop 5 The Parade – South side and Stop 6 – The Parade North Side.

Our History

Created to Care

In 2013, Danny’s Place was born from the mind of a respected Adelaide paediatric surgeon, Dr Sanjeev Khurana. During his role as a senior consultant at both the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre, Dr Khurana was often referred patients that needed support for obesity.  He had previously conducted a research trial with adolescents and Gastric banding out of Flinders Medical Centre and was the only paediatric surgeon in Adelaide addressing the unmet needs of obese adolescents. Whilst Dr Khurana had support from Flinders Medical Centre to carry out weight loss surgery, the public system lacked a cohesive program to support the adolescents undergoing surgery. Dr Khurana had the vision to bring a team together who were experienced in supporting weight loss surgery patients.  With this, he approached Jane Collins, a Certified Bariatric Nurse and Nick Wray an accredited practising dietitian from the Adelaide Bariatric Centre, Adelaide’s original centre with a multidisciplinary team caring for weight loss surgery patients.

Being our Best

In 2014, after many long conversations and meetings, Danny’s Place was officially created. Dr Shiree Perano a respected paediatrician in Adelaide came on board to support the medical oversight of the children and adolescents attending the service and as a team we had created the Be Your Best program. This was Adelaide’s only multidisciplinary care program for adolescents undergoing weight loss surgery, but as this only addressed a small percent of the population and there was another unmet need of weight management for children and adolescents that did not require surgery, the idea was enhanced and the scope extended to weight management in children presenting with obesity, not just those who needed surgery.

In 2015 Dr Khurana’s original concept was realised when Danny’s Place opened consulting in October and started delivering the Be Your Best program.

Working with Charity

In 2017 with the commitments of a young family and work becoming a difficult balancing act, Dr Perano made the difficult decision to step away from Danny’s Place. Today her young family are growing, and she works for Adelaide Paediatrics but remains a champion of our work at Danny’s Place. Pennie Taylor, an accredited practising dietitian with a longstanding history in weight loss surgery support, a practice owner of an adult multidisciplinary program for weight management and a research dietitian, came on board as a director to enhance our team. Additionally, Dr Suja Mathew stepped into Dr Perano’s role and has been providing medical oversight to the Danny’s Place families since 2017.

In 2018, as a team we realised, whilst there were many children, adolescents and families that needed our support, that cost, even a small cost was proving prohibitive to accessing the service.  With no government support for our program, despite many attempts, Variety, The Children’s Charity SA came on board with a 3-year grant worth $150,000. This support helped over an additional 100 families get access to care and supported Danny’s Place to further develop its program.  We will be forever grateful to those who donate to Variety and to the charity for believing in our program.

Whilst we will not have a surgical service anymore, we will remain delivering the multidisciplinary support that is needed for adolescents undergoing surgery and we will act as a concierge service to surgery providing access and appropriate referrals. We are also undergoing a change to the Be Your Best program in response to the needs of families. The content delivered will be the same however families will have more flexibility to choose what they want to use and who they want to connect with in the team, think more smorgasbord rather than a set menu. We are also working to develop an online program to increase accessibility for families and with a bunch of new team members who bring energy to match our experience, the future looks exciting and if 2020 and 2021 has taught us anything, it is about being flexible, so with that, we invite you to continue this journey with us.

Whilst our structures and program have changed, our vision and mission will always remain the same, that overweight and obese young people will have the opportunity to be the best, healthiest version of themselves by having access to a team of caring clinicians that will provide the best evidence-based practice, whilst being treated with dignity and respect.