Mothers and fathers of a child with a chronic condition or medical trauma feel their mood is predicted on how well the management of the condition is, unfortunately it is a long journey so they end up feeling exhausted.

We provide strategies to release you from this emotional roller coaster. Teaching you psychological tools to support your child so they do not feel their illness defines them.

Many parents who experience counselling with us, share how different we are, as we specialise in supporting parents with children who having a medical condition, they felt more understood and seen. We understand why you cant sleep at night or trust others to help you.

We know most of our parents have severe or moderate anxiety and usually see this decrease to normal levels after 6  sessions. We know this through evidence, as we gathered research from our last 500 counselling sessions and found these amazing results. Our counsellors get results that can even be measured. We did this research to try and get funding for parents and to put a spotlight on the importance of mental health support for families of a child with diabetes.

Imagine this, less insomnia, less impatience, less anxious thoughts and stomach flips because you have skills, you have been heard, and now your child has a better chance to live without intrusive anxiety too.

 Our counsellors are non-judgemental, honest and warm. We want to listen to your experiences and help you make sense of them so you can free yourself from the anxiety you may be experiencing. It’s important to feel comfortable in your sessions, a person you can trust and have permission to feel anything.

 We are here to support you to make healthy changes to be the best version of yourself.

We are not just counsellors but parents too, we know the realities of parenting.

We conduct parent workshops online about, “raising a child with a chronic condition”. Reach out for the next dates.

Research showing the importance of parents mental wellbeing on the child with diabetes

It is not just the child or adolescent that is impacted by their chronic illness. A study on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in parents of children with type 1 diabetes showed 65-66% presented with a clinical level of trauma . The stress was noted to have similar results to a parent with a child with cancer or a severe burn injury post one year of diagnosis. PTSD can be experienced by parents as, anxiety, depression, fear, and dissociative symptoms.

The data proved there was a direct relationship between PTSD scores and quality of life results. Numerous studies have shown that mothers are more at risk to PTSD than fathers, this was due to looking after the child more than the fathers.

Stoppelbein et al showed that hypervigilance was a common hyperarousal symptom experienced by parents due to the trauma of the diagnosis of diabetes . Excessive supervision of the management of type 1 diabetes was reported as a result from PTSD .

Parents are in essence, modelling hypervigilance behaviours to their child. This level of hypervigilance modelled to the child, then intensifies the child’s management of their diabetes, and is correlated to the child’s risk of anxiety exponentially increasing.

This is concerning when parents do not get support, therefore we are dedicated to create this special counselling service for parents of a child with type 1 diabetes as when you support the parent, the whole family thrives.