A referral usually arrives with a child's name on it. But by the time a family reaches me, it is rarely just the child who is running on empty. Many of the parents I meet are exhausted, out of ideas, and quietly wondering whether they are the problem. So I want to say this clearly: at Wild Springs, supporting the parents is part of the work, not a side effect of it.
I tend to attract complex families. Families who have done the traditional route, collected the reports, sat in the waiting rooms, and are still stuck on the same morning battles. Somewhere along the way a lot of parents absorb the message that if they just tried harder, things would be easier. That message is wrong, and it is heavy, and part of my job is helping you put it down.
Practically, parent support looks like a few things. It looks like you being in the room for sessions, not watching from a chair in the corner but involved, so the strategies live with you and not just with me. It looks like honest debriefs where you can say the unsayable things about how hard this season is, without judgement. It looks like building plans around your actual capacity, because a strategy that needs an hour of one-on-one prep every night is not a strategy, it is another job.
It also looks like crisis management support when a family is in the thick of it. Some seasons are about growth. Others are about getting through the week, and a plan for getting through the week is legitimate therapy work. I would rather help a family lower the bar for a while than watch them burn out chasing a program built for a calmer month.
One honest boundary. I am an occupational therapist, not your counsellor. If what you are carrying needs its own dedicated support, I will say so, and help you think through where to look. That is not a brush-off. Parents who have their own support in place tend to have more left in the tank for everything else, and the whole household feels it.
Sam, my therapy assistant, is part of this picture too. Her sessions are billed at a lower rate, which means families working within funding limits can keep therapy consistent without draining the budget. Consistency takes pressure off parents more than almost anything else I can offer.
If you are reading this at 11pm after another hard day, this post is probably for you. A consult is a calm, no-pressure place to lay out what is going on for your whole family, and to work out together whether Wild Springs is the right kind of support. Whenever you are ready.