Intake – During the intake, you will have more opportunity to explain behaviors you are seeing in your child and to let me know what goals you would like to see your child and family achieve. Together, we would review the intake form that you will have had a chance to fill out before coming to this session. I will explain in greater detail what the assessment phase with your child will look like and how I intend to help your child.

Child assessment sessions – I will use the first 3-4 sessions to get to know your child, understand how your child sees him or herself in relation to the community, school and family. I will also assess how the child thinks about the concerns. Establishing trust with the child is crucial in these early sessions as well as helping alleviate any shame or embarrassment the child may have about coming to counseling. Finally, I use these sessions to do some emotion vocabulary-building; teaching the child feeling words so the child can better articulate worries or frustrations.

Parent meeting – After the first few sessions, I like to meet with the parents again to share my thoughts and observations. During this time we would agree on goals and I can explain more about the plan I have to work with the child. We can talk about the length of treatment and together determine behavior changes that will indicate when treatment is successfully completed.

Counseling sessions – I would continue to see your child for counseling all the while maintaining close contact with you so that you are also an active participant in your child’s counseling process. It may be appropriate to have sessions that involve the whole family or just with the parents and the child. This would be an opportunity for the parents to see what the child is learning. Your child will be invited to use art materials, join in role plays, use sandtray objects to express themselves by getting feelings out into the open. Your child will learn skills and tools for managing these feelings that will lead to more positive behaviors.

Final celebration – Once treatment goals have been accomplished, we would hold a celebration to honor the work your child has bravely completed. The final session is a party and an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable changes your child has made.