Our Approach
Informed by our professional and parenting experience, we have created a six step approach that takes you on a journey, with you, the parent at the centre.
1. Acknowledge
The first step is to acknowledge that your young person is experiencing mental health difficulties.
​Being truthful with yourself about these difficulties, their extent and duration, requires huge courage.
​
Acknowledging the impact of these difficulties, not only on the young person, but on you, your co-parent and the wider family can also be challenging.
​
This acknowledgement of where you are, without judgement or blame, is your first powerful act. From here, all things are possible.
2. Accept
Secondly, there is a process of deep acceptance of where you are.
Let's face it, you would rather be anywhere else than here.
​
Your child is suffering, you are suffering, your partner is suffering, your other children are suffering. This impacts the the entire family ecosystem.
​
And yet, here you are.
​
Fostering loving acceptance, bringing curiosity and compassion to the table, focusing on the things you can control and change, enables you to move forward with agency and positivity.
3. Accept
Thirdly, you are in a place to enter a dialogue with others.
Now you are standing fully in the truth of your situation, you can engage with others, principally the young person's other parent or caregiver, to agree a way forward.
​
It is optimal that those in a parental role are on the same page, adopting the same approach, with the same boundaries. This can be difficult, especially when perspectives are different.
​
Coming to an agreement with others about the way forward for your young person and for the wider family is crucial to enable a consistent and stable foundation for everyone to trust and rely on.
4. Ally
Fourthly, becoming a powerful ally, starting with yourself.
Being an ally means that you have solidarity with the struggle of others, whilst not necessarily experiencing what they are going through yourself.
​
The two pillars of allyship are curiosity and compassion. We ask that you first become your own ally, showing yourself the consideration you show to others. Then you are ready to be an ally for your young person.
​
Being an ally is an active demonstration of empathy. It's not that you can 'fix' what is happening, rather that you deeply connect with and understand it from the perspective of yourself and your young person.
5. Advocate
Next advocate for your needs, and those of your young person.
First and foremost, advocate for yourself. What do you need? What support and resources do you want? How can your workplace help? How do you want others to engage with you? How will you ask for what you need?
​
Answering these questions for yourself will put you in an incredibly powerful position to support your young person in advocating for themselves, or for you to stand beside them as their advocate.
​
Having done the previous steps to fully understand and accept the situation, you are in a powerful place to support your young person in asking for, and getting, what they need.
6. Aspire
Looking forward, with courage and hope.
This process has not healed your young person of their mental health difficulties. That is their journey and may continue for some time.
​
What it has done is to put you, your co-parent and your family on a steady footing. You're not in constant crisis mode. You have maintained your own mental health. You have tools, resources and support to lean on.
​
You have grown as a parent and as a person through these experiences.
​
From here, it is now safe to think of the next steps for you and your young person. To consider your hopes and dreams, to look to the future.