By: Alshaba Billawala
Here’s what you need know about Psychology services at Connecting Dots!
Psychologists can be found in several different settings – they can be found in schools, private clinics, community organizations, small or large businesses, hospitals, etc. However, our psychologists at Connecting Dots play a special role. At least we like to believe so! So, what exactly do the psychologists at connecting dots do?
Psychology services at Connecting Dots focus on helping families and children overcome the various challenges they may face. They provide counselling and/or play based therapy to individuals, families and couples and often they do so in your natural environment(s).
What’s a natural environment? We’re glad you asked!
Simply put, a natural environment is where we would naturally find you at a given time. For children, this is often in their homes or at school. The advantage of working with someone in their natural environment is that the strategies and ideas your psychologist proposes are usually with consideration of the environment in which they are meant to be used. This typically allows for increased effectiveness and more wiggle room to troubleshoot anything that is not currently working.
There are various roles that our psychologists can play in supporting you and your family.
Some common examples of areas that a psychologist may be able to support you include:
- Emotion regulation– supporting children and family members in being able to identify their feelings and learning tools and strategies to cope with them
- Behavior management – supporting families with identifying creative ideas to reduce any problematic behaviors their children are engaging in
- Developing play and social skills – supporting children in developing advanced play skills (e.g., moving from solitary play to parallel and interactive play) and learning ways to improve their ability to interact with others in meaningful ways
- Developing independence – supporting families with identifying tools to improve the independence of their children in various areas (e.g., in completing activities of daily living)
- Identifying resources – supporting families in becoming connected with various organizations that may be able to further support your child/family
- Providing counselling support to family members of a child with special needs. As discussed further here, having a child with special needs impacts not only the child but also the broader family. As such, having support from a professional for the parent(s) or siblings can often be very helpful.
Collaboratively, our psychologists can work with your family to identify the areas with which your child is struggling and help you come up with creative approaches to move in the direction you want.
If you are interested in learning more about how our psychologists can support you, please feel free to contact us!