Emotional Wellbeing Support
Meta Empowerment provides quality counselling support for parents and advocates who care for children with additional needs because we know carer wellbeing is essential for the individual, the child, and the family as a whole. With a deep understanding of the challenges and triumphs that come with caring for a child with extra perk and quirks, Meta Empowerment offers highly empathetic, yet practical, counselling. The very accessible services have been designed with the time-poor and logistics-challenged carer in mind to make life easier. Allow M.E. to hear you and collaborate with you to create a ripple effect of empowerment that bolsters your strengths and nurtures an environment for your child to thrive!
Clients will benefit from a collaborative approach that integrates their own aspirations and expertise with Meta Empowerment’s evidence-based practices. This culmination of knowledge and strengths leads to reconnecting clients with ‘the missing link’ that interrupts a self-defeating cycle and supports the client’s emotional wellbeing and empowers them to reengage in their best parenting practices.
Advocacy Empowerment
This service is to support advocates with any of the vast challenges they may encounter as they act as the child’s number one champion. Some challenges that are commonly experienced include:
- Feeling Alone – It seems like no-one else can see the situation for how you see it and no-one is as invested in the advocacy role as what you are. Advocacy can be an isolating road.
- Dilemmas – For example, you know that a service your child is receiving needs to be changed to better suit their individual needs, but if you advocate for change then you may have concerns about the service provider’s response and the consequences for the family.
- Not Being Heard – You know something’s not right, you’ve tried and tried and tried to seek help or change but you’re getting nowhere.
- Not Knowing which Therapist to Engage – Social and emotional, cognitive, language, sensory, fine-motor, gross-motor, etc. It’s like a rainbow of needs that have numerous points of overlap. It can be hard to know which specialist to engage for specific needs.
- Information Overload – You’re being asked to understand the types of things that professionals come to understand with years of education and training so that you can keep up with where your child is at and make the best decisions.
- Second-Guessing Yourself – It can feel like a minefield of decisions to be made. With each step you take you question if it’s the right step, if it will blow up, or if it’ll set off other issues?
- Submissiveness – Feeling like you’re ‘just’ the parent/advocate in a team full of experts can compromise your confidence to back yourself and speak up for what you know is right for your child.
Meta Empowerment can talk through these challenges with you and help you to identify what’s holding you back from being the strongest advocate you can be and support your individualised development in this area.
Therapy Compliance
Unfortunately, developing new unhealthy habits is far easier than developing new healthy habits, such as following your child’s new therapy regime(s). Regardless of where you’re at on the ‘new-habit train’, Meta Empowerment can support you to proactively engage in your child’s therapy goals by helping you to:
- Connect with your motivation.
- Fearlessly commit to action.
- Integrate behaviour activation principles with your own creativity to develop a plan.
- Implement your plan.
- Refine the plan and get back on the tracks if you slip off.
With that last part, it’s really important to recognise that we’re human – we all slip! It’s so normal, and it’s so okay. Meta Empowerment will never judge you or criticise you for seeking support with therapy compliance, regardless of whether you’re at the start of the ‘new-habit train’, or slipping off the tracks. Have confidence that you will be supported to take the next steps that are best for you.
What to Expect
In every session with M.E. you can expect services that are: ethical, evidence-based, and reflect industry standard best practices. You can expect to be respected for who you are and whatever information you choose to share during your counselling sessions. Every session will embrace a person-centred approach, which means that you’ll be treated as the expert in your own life, free of judgement. You’ll be supported to develop personally meaningful solutions to your challenges and enhance your repertoire of coping mechanisms.
How long until I’m fixed?
- You’re not broken.
- The first session may not be a ground-breaking experience for you. It generally entails getting to know each other and really grasping what you want to work towards and figuring out a plan to achieve it. Some clients need more time than others to openly express themselves. That’s okay. We’ll work at a pace that you’re comfortable with.
And how did that make you feel?
It’s tempting to assume that certain scenarios would obviously make anyone feel a particular way. But it’s not obvious. We all experience the world differently and asking this question reveals your perspective and interpretation of your world.
The practical aspects
Each counselling session will run for 50 minutes, except for your initial session which will run for 60 minutes (at no additional cost to you). The extra time is there for you to ask any questions, to formalise our counselling agreement, and for us to get to know each other a bit better. Sessions are typically run via phone or video conference. Clients are encouraged to make themselves comfortable and have access to refreshments. If a face to face or walk’n’talk appointment is required, please contact M.E.