Gwyn Carter
Many parents worry about the emotional wellbeing of their children and teenagers. We are surrounded by news reports about young people with mental health problems and we know that they face pressures from school, social media, bullying and finding their way through relationships with their friends.
Families come to see us asking...
Do we need help and if so what sort?
Should we really be worried about this?
Is this just a time the family needs to get through?
You may have worried about your child or teen for a long time or seen recent changes that concern you.
What are they doing all alone in their room for hours on end? Are they eating enough? Too much? Why have they stopped talking to you? And why do they never seem willing to do what you ask?
You might wonder about depression or self-harm if a youngster is spending a lot of time alone. Or be concerned that they seem fearful about doing almost anything. Do they have friends? Does it matter?
You may be a teenager yourself with your own concerns...
Do you just not get on with your friends anymore?
Has school work become very difficult?
Are you struggling to manage feelings that you just don't understand anymore?
Sometimes people have had a very difficult experience that they just can’t seem to get over. You may have had an accident, an assault, or you may have lost someone that you were close to. You may wonder – is this just normal? – people tell you that being a teenager is a stressful and emotional time – but should it be this bad?
We Are Here to Help
First Phone Call
Your first contact with our service will be a phone call and we will talk about the nature of your difficulties. We will check out whether we are the best service to help you and if you agree that we are a good fit. If so, we will talk about how the person concerned feels about seeking help and who should come along to the first session.
First Session
In most cases a first session will be a family session, including the young person and their parent or parents. Occasionally older teenagers prefer to be seen on their own and sometimes parents prefer to have an adult discussion before involving their child in the sessions.
During the first session we will want to explore, What problems are you having and why they are a problem now? How has the problem developed over time? What is your family like and how it does it work together? What is the young person’s school and social life like? What was the youngster’s development like?
Some people are surprised that we will even go back and hear about pregnancy, birth and infancy. This is so we can learn as much as possible about why you have come to see us and so that we can put the present difficulties in their widest possible context.
We will listen carefully and take a multidimensional perspective on problems so the way in which we can help will vary – depending upon what we learn from you.
Usually, by the end of our first meeting, we will share with you some of the things that we feel are important and suggest what the next steps should be.
Next Steps
It maybe that we agree that further assessment is needed to understand a young person’s learning and development. Or we might feel consider that the child or teen may need to talk through their problems and learn new ways of coping with them. They may need help to resolve underlying memories and traumas.
Whatever we decide they will need the support and back up of the family and we usually involve the parents as well as the individual children.
At High View we believe that there is no substitute for listening carefully to children and families and helping them find the solutions that are going to work for them.
We will take a range of educational and therapeutic approaches to help them achieve their goals.