Psychology at Kids’ Care Collective provides psychological services and support to young people, and their families and carers across the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. Services are provided within the clinic and home settings, as well as liaising with schools and kindergartens. This ensures that the skills that are developed in 1:1 therapy can be generalised to the young person’s social and educational environments and the wider community
Psychological services at Kids’ Care Collective are aimed at improving the mental health and wellbeing of individuals with a range of needs, as well as working toward improving their holistic functioning within all aspects of their life. In addition, the service works collaboratively with carers, educators, and families, to help the individuals thrive within each of their environments. The service prides itself on using evidence-based practice to address a client’s individualised goals. In addition to this, we pride ourselves on providing a warm, friendly and supportive approach to create a positive environment for the young people and their families.

Individual Therapy

We provide client- focused therapy to individuals based on young person’s needs and presentation. We work collaboratively with families, carers, educators, and allied-health therapists to set and work toward client-based SMART goals. Intervention strategies are evidence based, which means that all interventions are based on current research, and in line with best practice. Young people and their families often seek psychological services to provide the support in the areas of behaviour management, mental health and wellbeing, social skills, communication and language and executive functioning. The types of support provided in 1:1 individual therapy have been detailed below.

Behaviour Management:

  • Utilising positive behaviour support strategies to manage challenging behaviours
  • Empowering the young person to develop strategies to manage their behaviour within their home, education, and social environments
  • Empowering families, carers, and educators to utilise strategies to manage the young person’s challenging behaviours.

Mental Health and wellbeing:

  • Establishing strategies for managing stress and anxiety
  • Developing confidence and self-esteem
  • Developing strategies for emotion regulation
  • Challenging negative thoughts and building a growth mindset

Social Skills:

  • Developing fundamental social skills
  • Teaching skills for social communication, reciprocity, and interaction with others
  • Teaching problem solving
  • Supporting the young person to develop and following social routines
  • Developing the young person’s self-awareness and self-advocacy
  • Developing the understanding of feeling and emotions within the self, and others
  • Establishing strategies for managing regulation within the social context

Communication and language:

  • Developing an understanding social language
  • Developing the skills to Initiate and end social interactions
  • Developing the ability to read cues, body language and facial expressions
  • Developing functional social language
  • Developing functional help seeking language

Executive functioning:

  • Supporting the young person to create and follow routines and schedules
  • Developing planning, organising and task management skills
  • Developing strategies to manage impulse control
  • Developing strategies to support attention and concentration
  • Supporting the young person with self and emotion regulation

Parent/ Caregiver/ Family Support

Behind every young person is a parent, carer or family that provides intensive daily care and support. As a result of this, a large aspect of psychological services at Kids’ Care Collective is providing support and coaching for the young person’s support system. This ensures that the support system is empowered and given the skills to work collaboratively toward the young person’s goals. We provide direct support within the home, 1:1 coaching session, as well as regular support team meetings with families. This support is often provided to address the following:

  • Supporting families to develop individualised strategies to support the young person’s goals
  • Supporting families to create an environment that is supportive of the young person’s needs
  • Empowering families to have the confidence and skills to manage challenging behaviours
  • Supporting families with creating home routines and schedules
  • Supporting families to address sleep, behaviour, feeding and self-care challenges
  • Providing advocacy on behalf of the young persons and their families

School or kindergarten liaising

At Kids’ Care Collective we provide external visits to schools, childcares, and kindergartens to address the young person’s goals in their social and educational environments. This provides the opportunity to deliver intervention within these settings, as well as supporting educators and staff to work collaboratively with the families to achieve the young person’s goals. This support is often provided to address the following:

  • Supporting educators to develop individualised strategies to support the young person’s goals
  • Supporting educators to create a learning environment that is supportive of the child’s needs
  • Empowering educators to have the confidence and skills to manage challenging behaviours, while utilising whole-class approaches
  • Supporting educators with creating routines and schedules for learning and daily tasks
  • Supporting educators to address behaviour, feeding and self-care challenges present within the environment

Assessment

We provide both formal and informal assessments for the purpose of investigating diagnosis in line with the DSM-5, school funding applications, NDIS funding applications and general therapy goal setting. We offer assessments in the areas of

  • Functional behaviour
  • Cognitive functioning
  • Academics
  • Depression, anxiety, and stress
  • Behavioural challenges

Details pertaining both formal and informal assessments can be discussed with your treating therapist or upon referral. How to book

A referral for psychological services is not required by a GP or specialist, simply give us a call to make an appointment with our Psychology team. To gain insight into the young person’s presentation and needs, the initial session will involve obtaining a detailed history and relevant information, meeting the young person and the family, rapport building and goal setting. This initial consultation is just as an imperative part of the service as the therapy sessions themselves.