The Child Psychology Service

As our children grow, change and develop there can be a fair few bumps along the way. Life doesn’t always work out in accordance with our preferences and this can impact the way we feel about ourselves and the world we live in. However, most things can be managed with the right support.

Using evidence-based assessment and interventions such as CBT, DBT, ACT, and psychoeducation, our qualified and highly experienced psychologists provide tailored solutions that will help to get things back on track.

Parents Counselling: Navigating the Complexities of Parenthood
Parenting is a rewarding yet challenging journey. At The Child Psychology Service, we understand that every parent-child relationship is unique. That’s why we offer specialised parents counselling, focusing on the individual needs and parenting styles of each family.

Counselling for Parenting Issues: A Compassionate Approach
Whether you’re a single parent, part of divorced parents, or navigating the expectations that parents expect from themselves and their children, our counselling for parenting issues provides a safe space to explore and address your concerns. Our experts in parenting counselling are here to support you in understanding and managing mental health challenges that may arise in your family dynamics.

Parenting Styles: Embracing Diversity
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. Our parents counselling services embrace the diversity of parenting styles, offering guidance tailored to your family’s unique dynamics. Whether you’re looking to understand the impact of divorced parents on children or seeking support as single parents, we’re here to help.

Mental Health: A Priority for Parents and Children
The mental health of both parents and children is at the core of our counselling for parenting issues. We provide tools and strategies to foster positive mental health, helping families navigate challenges and build resilience.

Workshops & Groups: Sharing and Learning
Connect with others who understand your journey. Our workshops and group sessions offer a supportive community where you can share experiences, learn new strategies, and find encouragement.

Support for You: Tailored and Practical
Our parents’ counselling services are designed to be practical and achievable. We work with you to create a tailored plan that fits into your daily life, making parenting more manageable and enjoyable.

Your Path to Positive Parenting
By focusing on the unique needs and challenges of each family, The Child Psychology Service offers compassionate and expert support through parents counselling. Our approach to counselling for parenting issues is tailored, practical, and focused on helping families thrive. Whether you’re navigating the complexities of divorced parents, exploring different parenting styles, or seeking support for mental health, we’re here to guide you every step of the way.

You might be concerned about how your child’s managing at school with their special needs learning. Or maybe the school or daycare has talked to you about your child’s behaviour or Learning Support needs. Whether they’re at pre-school, primary, intermediate, or college – you’re in the right place for Supporting students with special needs.

This can be a stressful time for you all, so we’ll work with you to find out what’s really going on, and help you move forward with a clear, practical plan for learning support.

Our experienced child psychologists can provide recommendations and strategies to support children who have learning differences like dyslexia, who are neurodivergent and have ADHD, or who are gifted, or autistic. 

Our educational psychologists also undertake standardised assessments and follow up with cohesive and practical recommendations which give a clear indication of how to support your child’s special needs learning best, or for Special Assessment Conditions at exams.

We can visit you at home and look at how your child is at school, observing their Learning Support in action. We’ll meet with teachers and other adults or health professionals who may be involved in Supporting students with special needs. Seeing your child in their different places gives our team of psychologists a great picture of what’s really going on.

At the Child Psychology Service, we work as a multi-disciplinary team. This means that people with different but complementary skills work together with you and your child to make sure they get the help they need.

When you start with us, you'll meet a psychologist for an initial consultation. Even if you have seen a psychologist before this is an important part of the process. They'll talk to you and learn all about why you came to see us. Then together, you'll make a plan to help you and your child. Often this is enough support.

Sometimes, you and your psychologist might think a psychiatrist, could help too. This will include undertaking some screening tools and also gathering data from other people involved in your child’s life like their teacher. When they have done this they will share this with the psychiatrist. If the psychiatrist agrees they could be helpful you will have an appointment with them, and they'll share what they find with you and the psychologist.

Your psychologist will keep helping you throughout this process and share ideas to make things better for your child. They'll be with you from the start to the end, so you don't just get a label or a diagnosis – you get to learn how to better help your child both at home and in school.

Not all children require assessments, but for those who do, we take a multi-disciplinary approach.

When you’re seeking guidance and support for your child’s development or behaviour, it’s important to understand the different approaches.

One pathway involves a focus on diagnosis, which primarily assigns a label to certain traits or behaviours. While a diagnosis can offer some guidance, it doesn’t necessarily provide deeper insight into YOUR child and their world; it simply confirms they meet the criteria for a specific label.

Recent research on best practices (NICE Guidelines) highlight the importance of truly understanding your child and how to support their individual needs. This is because a label cannot account for all the unique differences that exist in each child and it also doesn’t account for the environmental influences that impact your child’s development either.

That’s why at The Child Psychology Service, we work in a more child-centred way by using a multidisciplinary, neurodivergence-affirming  approach. This kind of approach explores your child’s strengths and challenges and identifies what makes them unique in areas like thinking, emotions, and social interactions. It also looks at their environment and relationships and how these might be influencing their development or behaviour. It reinforces the idea that being different is perfectly okay and concentrates on supporting and celebrating each child’s uniqueness whilst supporting the more tricky things.

The TCPS approach provides clear guidance for the next steps in all areas of your child’s life. Whilst a diagnosis may be a component of an MDT approach, it’s only a small part, not the main purpose, because it isn’t the label that makes the biggest difference. What does, is knowing what this means to your child and family, gaining a deeper understanding and making the changes that can support your child. Here at TCPS, we are here to support you on your journey to gaining better clarity, support, and understanding for you and your child. 

By opting for this way of working, you and your child can collaborate with various mental health professionals who are dedicated to fully understanding them and their world and, supporting them with positive growth to fulfil their own unique potential.

 

Our highly experienced team are skilled at offering support to strengthen your whole school system. We partner with you, both strategically and practically, to explore and build upon your school’s strengths, increase capacity and enhance staff wellbeing.

We strongly believe that when you work in this top down and, largely preventative, manner you strengthen outcomes for EVERY child and staff member.

This is hugely important during COVID-19 when anxieties can be high and priorities have shifted. We can work with you to develop your response, as well as other support needs your tamariki may face.

We are currently working with schools funded through the COVID-19 Urgent Response Funding.

We’re also skilled at offering supervision to all members of the senior leadership team, teachers, teacher aides, RTLBs and psychologists.

Professional supervision is essential for ethical and safe professional practice. Supervision also gives you a chance to think about and explore your feelings around your work in a non-judgmental, safe relationship.

Supervision with one of the team at The Child Psychology Service can have many benefits, including enhanced workplace well-being and higher workplace productivity. This can result in lower staff turnover, and higher degree of job satisfaction

Sometimes we work better together. Learning together in a workshop means you can benefit from our knowledge and the experiences of others in the group.

You might be a parent or carer looking for a workshop, or a group of like-minded parents looking for answers to the same questions.

We also provide workshops for teachers and health professionals.

We’re child psychologists who’re also experienced training developers and facilitators. Our skill is the ability to take current findings from research in the fields of psychology and neuroscience and put them into easy-to-understand, practical workshops that match your need.

Workshops - The Child Psychology Service