Parent Consultation

I am a speech & language therapist, but I do not do any traditional speech and language therapy work, e.g., helping children learn vocabulary, or helping them to learn to use past tense verb forms in their talking. Several years ago, I trained in using Cognitive Behaviour. Therapy with young people and I specialise in adapting intervention for autistic children, teenagers, and young adults, and working with families. I bespoke what I do to fit each young person and family that I work with. Being neurodivergent is at the heart of everything I do, e.g., learning about who you are, recognising your strengths, raising awareness of what makes neuro-differences become difficulties, and finding what helps.

I offer Parent Consultations in the following situations:

• When parents want to share their experiences, thoughts, feelings.

• When they want support to try to understand their child and what is happening at home, what a diagnosis of autism means, how to understand this in the context of their child, rather than as a generic label, and how to help their child and reduce misunderstandings and difficult situations.

• When their child is not able or does not want to engage in therapeutic support and we cannot all work together.

My approach is flexible, and I do not offer a prescribed number of sessions. My aim is to provide a needs-led service that fits each parent. For example, some parents might want one off sessions, when they are struggling, some might want weekly sessions, some might want a session a month.

I am committed to working together as a team to listen, understand, support, and help parents to feel more confident about understanding and responding to situations. It takes time to unpick what has happened, to identify triggers and to find what helps.

Strategies always need adapting and updating and it can be hard work to find solutions. My aim is to help parents to recognise their skills and strengths, and to help them to work together with their autistic child as a team.

I write up sessions to help parents process and remember what we discussed, make resources, and provide links to related reading material, videos and podcasts that might be helpful for families.