Groups

Child In Mind offers in-person and virtual therapeutic groups to children, youth and parents facing a wide range of challenges. Registration links and information for all groups can be found below. For more information - shelley@childinmind.com

Self-Regulation & Social Skills

Age 6-8

Age 9-12

In this group children will receive support in understanding their brain and how it works to regulate emotions. They will learn to identify and practice strategies that help them regulate and connect this to their social skills and success in social situations. Participants will learn these concepts through the use of games, role play, crafts and other interactive activities.

Using evidence-based curriculum, this group will be facilitated by our expert instructor therapists in a small group ratio of 5 children to one facilitator.

Learn to Play

Age 3-5

In this group, children will learn to play in small groups with other children in a safe, fun environment.

The activities will encompass taking turns, engaging in exploratory, imaginative, associative play, and eventually in cooperative play. Play skill development will be introduced and practiced using books, videos, games, and music.

Using evidence-based curriculum, this group will be facilitated by our expert therapists in a small group ratio of 2-3 children to one facilitator.

Calm Connections

Ages 6-8

Ages 9-11

Ages 12-14

These 6-week groups are for children and teens who are looking for ways to manage stress that interferes with their everyday routines, social and family life, and/or academic functioning. The group will bring participants through the process of understanding their stress, and learning how to detect and manage unhelpful thoughts and feelings using various strategies from a cognitive-behavioural approach. In addition participants will participate in goal-setting and confidence-building activities to strengthen their inner wealth.

*New* Echo: An Emotional Awareness and Regulation Group for Teens

Age 14-17

Welcome to ECHO, a group designed specifically for teens seeking to enhance their emotional regulation and awareness skills. This closed group provides a supportive and structured environment for participants to explore and master the skills needed to manage their emotions effectively,facilitated by a Registered Psychotherapist.

The group will focus on a number of DBT principles in order to help participants build emotional tolerance, improve self-awareness and develop healthier coping skills. Participants will engage in interactive discussions, skill-building exercises, and reflection centered around DBT’s core modules:

Dates TBD - Dependent on Registration

Mindfulness: Enhancing the ability to stay present and fully engage with one’s emotions and experiences.
Distress Tolerance: Developing strategies to manage and tolerate distressing situations without resorting to harmful behaviours.
Emotional Regulation: Learning techniques to identify, understand, and modify intense emotions effectively.
Interpersonal Effectiveness: Building skills for assertive communication and maintaining healthy relationships.

*New* School Success Program

This 2 hour school support program is an initiative designed to provide academic, emotional, and social support to students, helping them succeed in school. This program aims to address a wide range of needs and challenges that students may face, whether academic, behavioural, or personal, and is tailored to support individual needs.

Here are some key components of our school support program:

Academic Assistance: Tutoring, homework help, or specialized instruction in areas where students may be struggling. This may include support completing assignments, one-on-one tutoring or special interest projects to engage students in their learning.
Social and Emotional Support: Therapeutic services that offer students a safe space to discuss personal or social challenges including anxiety, bullying, peer relationships, or emotional regulation.
Behavioral Intervention: For students facing behavioral challenges, the program offers behavior modification plans, mentorship, or guidance on conflict resolution. It may also include strategies for improving students' self-regulation, impulse control, and positive decision-making.
Parent and Family Engagement: This program also engages parents and guardians in the support process. Workshops, meetings, and communication with parents and guardians is an essential component of the program.

The overall goal of this school support program is to create a more inclusive, supportive learning environment that helps students overcome barriers to learning, develop healthy coping strategies, and reach their academic and personal potential.

Starts January 9th with continuous enrollment. Thursdays from 10 am-12 pm.

*New* SPACE

Parent Group

Supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions (SPACE) is a novel parent-based treatment aimed at reducing parental accommodation of the child’s and adolescent’s anxiety or OCD symptoms and increasing supportive parental responses.

SPACE focuses on modifying the parental approach to the child’s anxiety symptoms and includes tools for helping parents cope with the children’s externalizing or otherwise difficult behaviours that occur during treatment

SPACE treatment is appropriate for many of the most common anxiety issues that children and adolescents face:

Separation anxiety
Social anxiety
Generalized anxiety
Specific phobias
Illness and health anxiety
Selective mutism
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

*New* Online Workshops - Psycho-education for Parents to help Connect to Our Kids

Parent Groups

January 14th - Helping Kids with Anxiety

February 25th - Against Eating Disorders: Helping Kids Love Their Bodies

March 25th - Sibling Rivalry

April 22nd - Bullying and Struggles with Friends

May 27th - On Divorce

June 10th - Connecting to Your Kids Through Play

July 8th - Struggles With Entitled Kids and How to Help Kids with Gratitude

Connect & Create Teen Social Group

Age 14-17 or Grade 9-12

In this group, teenagers will enjoy a relaxed atmosphere, engaging in board games, conversations, art projects, music and forming new friendships in a safe space.

Nurtured Heart

Parent Group

The Nurtured Heart Approach® (NHA) is a curriculum for relationship. It supports adults in relating to children in ways that guide them to use their intensity successfully and positively. Through the NHA, children come to see their intensity as fuel for greatness, not as a deficit or a handicap. Originally developed for working with the most challenging children, the NHA works to awaken the greatness inherent in all children. Rather than acting out negatively, children begin to act out their greatness – and adults get to experience the joy of being a highly effective agent of change in the lives of children.

Peers Program

Ages 13-18

PEERS for Adolescents is an evidenced-based social skills program for adolescents in middle and high school who are interested in making and keeping friends and/or handling conflict and rejection. The group is cognitive-behavioural, meaning that it involves learning specific skills—actions and ways of thinking—that have been shown through research to be effective. It was initially developed for youth with autism, and has been found to be helpful for youth and young adults who want to work on their social relationships for all kinds of different reasons.

*New* Parenting Your Anxious Child: Bibliotherapy to Help our Children and Ourselves

Parent Group

Anxiety, grief and anger are staples of young children’s emotional worlds. In this workshop, we rely upon a number of picturebooks that parents can read at home to help them navigate these big feelings. Each picturebook has a psychotherapeutic objective, including using curiosity, using validation, and using emotional scaffolding to help children face their fears where possible. These picture books help us as parents to stay connected to our children when they are struggling with anxiety.

Tuesdays from 6:00 - 7:30pm EST

Week 1 - January 21st – Explaining anxiety and co-regulation

Week 2 - January 28th - Attuned listening and building communication

Week 3 - February 4th - Systemic reasons for anxiety

Week 4 - February 11th - Facing your fears

Week 5 - Feb 18th - Reviewing the skills we’ve learned and looking forward

Group Cost: $100/hr with a commitment for the full group series (typically 6-9 hours). Our services are covered by most extended health benefits plans. Please confirm with your insurance provider that you have coverage for psychological services. Receipts will be provided following each session. Payment is required following each session, including missed sessions.