FAQs
How do I get started?
We’ll start our work together with a phone consultation to ensure my experience is a match for your child’s concern. Prior to booking our first session, you’ll be asked to fill out an intake form for your child, so that we can gain a better understanding of your history and specific treatment needs. Following that, caregivers can schedule an online or in-person intake session (without children) allowing you some time to cover what it is that has brought you to seek therapy for your child at this time, as well as, to review pertinent history and gain a clear understanding for treatment planning.
Once a session is booked, clients are offered an open, non-judgmental space to share their story. This may be done through art, toys, or words. For initial sessions, we encourage the caregivers’ attendance for the first few minutes.
We believe that you don’t have to re-experience the past to heal from it; on the contrary and especially with trauma, remaining in the present is often the quickest way to achieve balance.
Why do you use play-, synergetic or expressive therapy with kids?
Evidence shows that play, expressive and synergetic play therapy:
Improves coping strategies
Improves communication skills
Changes self-defeating behaviours
Gains a better understanding of regulation and emotions
Strengthens relationships and attachment
Increases self-confidence, helps to work through fears
Lets children learn to resolve conflict more effectively
Promotes co- and self-regulation through modelling and mirroring of a training clinician
What do child and youth sessions look like?
Depending on your child’s age, counselling sessions may be play, expressive arts, synergetic play or talk-therapy centred. Play therapy allows children to express themselves and process their experiences through a variety of creative means, in an indirect and non-threatening way. Child and youth clients learn new ways of coping, communicating and healthy redirection of problematic behaviours through expressive techniques.
Before beginning therapy, we’ll start with an intake session just for caregivers so that you have an open, non-judgmental space to share your concerns, challenges and goals for your child’s treatment.
An RPT from the UK describes play therapy and sessions.
What’s so great about counselling?
We can’t find solutions to current problems by using the same methods or thinking that created the problem in the first place. People who seek counselling aren’t any different than anyone else - we all experience problems - but they realize that by working together, we can find new ways of solving old problems. The translation of the word psychotherapy from Latin defines counselling in its true context: the process of "soul healing". Therapy aims to support and empower individuals to effectively achieve personal growth through the process of not only being seen, but being accepted as we are.
How many sessions will my child need?
There is no one-size fits all approach to counselling. Treatment times depend on the concerns and goals you bring to sessions, as well as the length of time that you’ve been coping with these challenges.
Children need consistency and regular therapy will bring the most effective change. Since developmental change is gradual and incremental, having counselling be part of a child’s weekly routine can be extremely beneficial. Some children find that specific skills can be learned and integrated in 12-15 sessions, while others with more complex mental health challenges depend on the regularity of therapy as they grow and develop each month. It is not uncommon for adolescents dealing with concerns such as self-harm or depression to seek therapy for 5-6 months to see lasting results.
Is counselling covered by my extended medical?
It is possible that counselling is covered by your benefit plan; it is best to ask your employer about which services, amounts and designations are covered. Typically, services provided by CPCA counsellors are covered by: Sunlife Financial, Manulife, Morneau Shepell, GreenShield, Aspiria, Great West Life & more.
Bright Minds Counselling will provide you with a receipt (by email) after any sessions for which you have paid; you may then provide receipts to your benefit provider for reimbursement.
What are your professional qualifications?
Sarah has specialized training, in addition to her designation as an RPC (Registered Professional Counsellor) with the CPCA, in child and youth: mental health, neurosciences, the impact of trauma on developing brains, and child-specific therapies. As an instructor and facilitator for intern supervision groups at Moving Forward Family Services , Sarah works with interns and new practitioners to develop their skills in this specialized niche, whether through consultation, workshops or group check-ins on client cases. Visit the About page for more professional and educational background.
Do you work alone or as part of a team?
While Bright Minds Counselling is a private practice, clinical teamwork and supervision is a required, ongoing and integral component in any counsellor’s career in B.C. My sessions are conducted one to one (client and counsellor), however my work is backed by a clinical team and clinical supervisors to fulfill both professional and ethical requirements of the CPCA (Dr. Faizal Sahukhan, PhD; Andrew Bexson, Master Practitioner Supervisor, RPC). This means that periodically cases are presented or discussed to review treatment or client progress. Client confidentiality is maintained at all times and no identifying information will be used, even among the clinical team.