Our needs-led pilot is offering young people, and their families, bespoke interventions to help pinpoint the challenges they face while providing strategies and resources to support them.
This service is for neurodiverse children and young people at all stages of their diagnosis journey and offered through our MindMate SPA service.
Looking for support
One of those children, 10-year-old Oliver*, was referred to our needs-led pilot through the MindMate Single Point of Access service. Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and additional special educational needs and disabilities, his parents were looking for some support to help alleviate his anxious attachment to his mum Louise*.
Oliver sought constant company from his parents and found changes to his routine challenging and emotionally distressing. Alongside this, Louise found it hard to set boundaries and create time and space for herself. Louise was aware of her own overprotectiveness of Oliver, and how it may add to some of the challenges.
Though Oliver benefited from a highly supportive, nurturing and secure home environment, with his family showing a strong understanding of his needs, Louise sought further support to help Oliver and the family with some of these challenges.
Building support plans together
Following on from his initial assessment, our school therapist, Nichola, agreed that it would be important to introduce strategies tailored to Oliver’s needs to support creating boundaries and promote independence.
Nichola created a report which included a range of strategies to help both Oliver and Louise, including breathing techniques to support emotional regulation.
Putting strategies into action
Using these strategies, Louise found that Oliver was capable of greater independence than she previously thought. Through our support, Louise was able to identify that involving Oliver in decisions based on clear factual information helped significantly – enabling him to reduce anxieties, regulate emotions and develop his independence.
Louise was also able to identify that the family’s routine did not need to be so highly structured, and his responses were influenced by her overprotectiveness that impacted her parenting style.
Through the strategies, Louise was able to create more time for herself, reducing the guilt she felt and helping with her own wellbeing.
Reflecting on the sessions, Louise said: “Having someone who was impartial to talk to really helped. It’s allowed me to think a lot more about how I manage some of my son’s behaviour, which in turn has had an impact on his responses to situations.
“If you have a child with additional needs or neurodiversity, I would highly recommend you to reach out for support. It’s an opportunity to offload frustrations or anxieties around your concerns, as well as get additional resources to support your understanding from someone who is impartial to the situation.”
Find out more about the services we have on offer here.
*Names have been anonymised for confidentiality
