We are now able to accept referrals for one-off consultations, private and professionally funded therapy.
If you are in need of urgent help, please see our list of resources here.
We are currently able to offer one-off supportive consultations for parents and carers, to discuss the difficulties you and your child are experiencing and how you can support them. These appointments last up to 60 minutes and include a brief written summary; the therapist may also offer a follow-up appointment if that is helpful. We ask you to come to this appointment without your child. This one-off consultation is charged at £105 (equivalent to 1.5 standard appointments).
When you reach the top of our waiting list for ongoing therapy, we will do our best to identify the most suitable therapist to support you or your child, including identifying and reserving a regular appointment; individual therapy appointments are usually weekly. Due to the level of demand we are experiencing, we will only be able to offer a limited number of appointment options so please make sure we have up-to-date information about your needs and availability while you are on our waiting list.
We usually ask for consent from all parents before beginning direct work with a child, and therapy is most successful when all parents and carers are able to be actively engaged and supportive. If you think there is likely to be any difficulty in obtaining consent and support from your child’s other parent(s), we will need to discuss this with you in more detail before confirming an appointment.
We will then make an appointment with this therapist for a more in-depth consultation. This is an opportunity for you to ask more questions about the recommended therapy, as well as talking about your situation and receiving some support. We can approach this in a number of ways, depending on the age and needs of your child:
- We ask that parents or carers of young children attend this appointment without their child, so that you can talk freely and openly about your concerns. This also gives you time to prepare them for their first appointment after you have met the therapist, and means that their first experience of the centre can be focused on helping them to feel safe and comfortable and to start forming a therapeutic relationship.
- Some parents and carers of older children find it helpful to include them in this meeting so that they can be fully involved in the process. If your child is around secondary school age we are happy for you to decide whether this would be more appropriate.
- If your child is an older teenager or young adult, you may prefer to offer them the opportunity to meet the therapist on their own for this first appointment. If this is the case we ask that you (the parent or carer) join at least for a short time, so that the therapist can talk to you together about your expectations and about how we work, including our confidentiality and safeguarding procedures.
- If you are referring yourself as a parent or young adult, you are welcome to attend on your own or to invite someone to support you.
If you are paying directly, this initial session is charged at our standard rate of £70. (Read more about our fees here)
If you decide to go ahead with therapy after the consultation, we will confirm your regular appointment. We will reserve this weekly space for you for as long as it is needed.
We will agree times for regular therapeutic reviews, usually one for every six therapy sessions. You will meet your child’s therapist to discuss how things are going and decide what to do next. The content of your child’s therapy sessions is confidential, but the therapist will talk to them about sharing some general feedback about what they have been working on, observations about how they use their time in therapy, and any specific information your child wants you to have. This time is also for you to talk more generally about how things are going for your child and how things have changed outside of therapy sessions. The therapist will do their best to answer any questions you might have; this might include discussing aspects of therapeutic parenting, behaviour management and family dynamics, or suggesting books, websites, or other resources and services that may be useful to you.
The aim of these reviews is to support you as parents / carers, and to help you support your child to integrate the progress they are making in therapy into everyday life. The reviews form an essential part of our approach to therapy with children and young people. Reviews are charged at the same standard rate as all other therapeutic appointments.
In most cases, we would expect a course of therapy to last a minimum of 12-16 sessions, with a review approximately every six sessions. After the last review we usually recommend one or two final sessions to say goodbye and consolidate the changes that have occurred.
If at any time you feel that the therapist you have been recommended is not suitable for your needs, please discuss your concerns with them or with Jenny or Rosie, and we will do our best to address these. Your therapist might also recommend a change, either because their assessment suggests that a different approach would be more effective for you (for example, family therapy rather than individual, or a more creative rather than a talk-based approach), or because a different member of our team has more specialised knowledge. You will always be given the opportunity to talk through any recommendations and to meet the new therapist before deciding whether or not to begin work with them.