Family and child psychologists

We provide a range of child and family mental health and wellbeing services. Service include child and adolescent assessment and therapy; autism spectrum assessment and interventions; and psychoeducational assessments.

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What we can provide

We are a Sunbury-based team of specialist child and family psychologists who share a strong commitment to supporting families through evidence based quality services. We strive to develop open and supportive relationships with the families we see.  We value your feedback and participation at every step of the way, from assessment to planning and treatment. Our office is set up to provide a supportive and welcoming space for families and children.

Assessment

In family/child work we usually meet with your family first, to hear about your concerns and hopes. Assessment usually involves a mix of seeing parents/carers and children, both together and separately. A feedback session with parents/carers provides a space to further discuss concerns and work together to develop a tailored intervention for your child.

Therapy and Interventions

Similarly to the assessment phase, therapy may involve working via a mix of joint and separate parent and children sessions. Most approaches will require both parents and children to commit to some shared goals. Child-only sessions may involve talking, play-based work, drawing, and other child-friendly therapeutic activities.

Family wrap-around-service

Sometimes more than one person in a family might benefit from support (e.g., siblings or parents) and we can provide a wrap-around service for the family with multiple clinician's working together to support the family. If needed, and where possible, we will try to provide parallel appointments so, for example, a child and parent can be seen during the one appointment time to reduce the load on busy families.

​How we work with you

Our practice is called Family Minded because we consider the needs and wellbeing of the whole family as this is crucial to child and adolescent mental health. To best understand your child’s needs we need to gather information from a range of your child’s settings including school/daycare/kinder, and with both sets of families if you are separated from your child’s other parent. We know that the best outcomes occur when we work with both parents, and other family members/caregivers from assessment through to therapy

•  Will I be in the sessions? 

1. Sometimes parents are regularly part of the sessions as the assessment or therapy work requires the parent’s involvement.
   1. This varies according to age, the reason for the referral and the assessment or treatment plan.
2. If you are not required in the session it is expected that you remain in the building.  Sometimes parents will want to drop off their child and then go pick up the other children from kinder/school, this may be negotiated with the clinician, depending on the needs of your child. If it is agreed that you can leave the building you must be back by the 45-minute mark to ensure you are there to collect your child at the end of the session, make payment and confirm the next session details, homework arrangements and so forth.

• Will my child’s other parent have to attend sessions?

1. Sometimes, if appropriate, families will make arrangements, so parents share bringing the child to the session so that both parents are able to share information and hear about recommendations.
2. If this is not appropriate due to work commitments or court orders, please it discuss with your psychologist.​

• What is included in the session fee?

1. Session fees cover more than just the 50-minute session, they also include time taken to prepare for sessions, use of resources, assessment tools, record keeping and occasional phone or email contact over the course of assessment or intervention. During assessment this contact might include a brief phone call with the child’s teacher to obtain information or provide some recommendations. If more intensive contact is required with parents, or school staff this might require a face to face or phone meeting. The session fees also cover brief clinical summary letters to your referring GP at the 6-session review and closure of your file, or at other times as clinically required.

• Parent meetings/sessions      
  1. Parent meetings/sessions are the same cost as an assessment or therapy session. Unfortunately, Medicare rebates do not apply. If the contact is brief and under 15 mins this is covered by the session fees, however if the contact is required regularly (for example by a non-referring parent) and requires more than 15 minutes this will be charged at the hourly rate and will need to be booked into the clinician’s calendar ahead of time.
  2. See section 6. for more information about contact with non-referring parents/family members.
• Attendance at school or other professionals’ meetings.
  1. There might be times when a brief phone call is not enough to cover your child’s needs and you may request a longer meeting either face to face or over the phone between us and your child’s teacher or other professional.  These meetings will need to be booked well ahead of time and are charged at the same hourly rate as the assessment and therapy sessions and do not attract a Medicare or private health rebate.
     1. Off-site attendance at meetings
        1. These are charged at 90 mins per meeting to allow for a full hour of meeting plus travel time and expenses.
        2. Phone meetings are charged at the hourly rate and can be arranged for 30 mins or 60 mins.
• Clinical Reports
  1. Unless the referral is specifically for a assessment, a clinical report is not usually prepared. Instead we provide update letters to the referring GP in addition to ongoing feedback and discussions with families.
  2. If you do require a report outlining the assessment and therapy undertaken this is charged at the hour rate and may take 2-3 hours to prepare. There is no rebate available.
• Working with separated families
  1. We will expect both parents to be aware of, and supportive of, your child attending assessment or therapy sessions.
  2. We can provide brief phone consults (<15 minutes) to non-referring parents. We encourage the non-referring parent to call us to contribute to assessment and therapy.  If a more extensive discussion either face to face or over the phone (30 mins or 50 mins) is needed, then this can be arranged, and the hourly session fee will apply.  Medicare rebates do not apply if the child is not seen in the session.
  3. We will also expect that both parents are sharing information regarding the child’s psychological health needs in accordance with parenting orders and responsibilities.
     1. The exception to these requirements are;
        1. When the other parent is deceased,
        2. When there are parenting orders placing parenting responsibility with only one parent,
        3. the other parent is not contactable, or
        4. there has been no contact with the other parent for a number of years.
• Court reports and court attendance
  1. We do not provide assessments for Family Court
  2. We do not prepare reports for either Family Court, Children’s Court or Criminal Courts.  Such reports require the expertise of a forensic or medio/legal psychologist and such assessments and reports are outside the scope of Medicare mental health care plans.
  3. If we are subpoenaed to attend court, we will charge the fees recommended by the Australian Psychological Society, this may be $708 for the first two hours and $385 for every hour thereafter (correct as of April 2019).