Psychological support for parents and carers

Parents and carers often contact us for help supporting their children or teens. Whether a child is experiencing a particular difficulty or displaying challenging behaviours, our therapeutic parenting support sessions are designed to give parents and carers the tools to make a positive change in their children’s lives.

We provide parenting interventions to help with issues like:

  • Behaviour management

  • Attachment and relationship difficulties

  • Sleeping, feeding and toileting difficulties

  • Managing children’s emotional difficulties

  • Understanding developmental issues

  • Coping and making changes as a parent

Our therapeutic parenting support is always child-focused, giving parents and carers the skills and understanding to best help the children or young people in their care.

Consultations

We offer initial consultations to those who would like to discuss their child/young person’s difficulties with a highly-qualified clinician. The aim of these sessions is to get an understanding of the situation you, your family or your child/young person is facing.

It is also an opportunity for you to ask questions about our service and how we can help you. Initial consultations are not designed to ‘fix the problem.’ However, they help us identify the most suitable way forward. We may recommend an assessment, therapeutic input or advise of other services to assist you.

Specialist psychological assessments

We undertake psychological assessments, which we sometimes also call ‘assessments of therapeutic need’, to help us understand more about your child or young person and their needs, including how they fit in and interact with you and the family in general.

The assessments also help to inform the direction of therapy we plan to take. They help to ensure that we put the most appropriate therapeutic plan in place and give us an in-depth understanding of your situation.

We can also provide a range of other specialist assessments according to your individual needs, such as ASD Assessments, Risk Assessments, Placement Needs Assessments and more.

Please contact us if you wish to find out more about the type of psychological assessments we undertake. You’re welcome to contact us with any questions you may have too.

Therapeutic intervention

The therapeutic services we provide are designed to help children, young people and families through the challenges being faced at a particular time, whether emotional, behavioural, relational or developmental.

Our clinicians and therapists are highly qualified in helping you and your child/young person work through the difficulties you may be experiencing. They are experienced in a wide range of therapeutic approaches to provide the most appropriate treatment. In most cases, we believe that therapy is most successful when we can offer in-depth, regular and long-term support.

FAQs

You do not need a GP letter or special referral to access our services. Please contact us about your situation, providing as much detail as possible. We will get back to you with more information about working with us.

Please note that if you think your sessions will be funded by your Local Authority, Regional Adoption Agency or another organisation, you will likely need to speak with them first.

Therapeutic interventions and assessments may be accessible through your Local Authority or Regional Adoption Agency if you are an adoptive parent or special guardian. These are often funded under the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. You will need to speak with your post-adoption social worker to discuss this.

We are a registered Adoption Support Agency and regularly provide trauma-informed therapeutic interventions and complex psychological assessments. As such, we are inspected by Ofsted for our work with adoptive families.

Please contact us for our most up-to-date pricing structure.

We understand that it is not always possible to fund sessions yourself. Our fees reflect the many years’ experience and training our clinicians undertake to provide an expert and high-quality clinical service.

If you are an adoptive parent, special guardian or foster carer, you might be able to access our services through your Regional Adoption Agency or Local Authority. Please speak to your social worker to discuss this.

Some organisations, such as schools or charities, may help fund sessions with a clinical psychologist. It is best to speak to the organisation directly to find out if this is possible.

We occasionally work with insurance companies to provide sessions for children or young people. Please talk to your insurer to see if this would be a possibility.

We tailor our sessions to suit the specific needs of you and your child or young person. Your clinician will talk with you about the plan before we get started. Please browse our website for more detailed information about working with Gateway Psychology. You can also get in touch with us with any specific questions you might have.