“Having been failed by the support services offered by our local authority, my daughter started sessions with Calmer Lives to help her to work through the troubles she was having with a variety of issues including school anxiety and family relationships/dynamics. After attending a series of weekly sessions, she has now arrived at a much happier place in life and feels better equipped to handle the challenges that her rapidly approaching adult life will bring. I honestly don't know what we'd have done without the help of Calmer Lives.
I subsequently reached out for help with Calmer Lives after hitting a wall of my own; stress from work compounded by complex family/relationship dynamics left me close to despair without the motivation to look after my own needs. Calmer Lives expert advice and guidance showed me how to achieve the best outcomes for myself and my family, underlining the importance of prioritising my own needs. My now monthly check-ins with Calmer Lives will help me to ensure that I'm continuing to improve.
Working from home, I find that the online sessions worked best for me since I can simply block a suitable time-slot out of my day and be in therapy without leaving my 'office'.
Calmer Lives guided me sensitively through the relationship issues I was experiencing with my neuro-diverse children. After each session, I was directed towards relevant supporting resources and materials that I could utilise in my spare time to quickly give me the tools to improve. I'm now taking a completely different approach towards communication with my whole family and can honestly say that my relationship with them as a whole has never been better. I wouldn't be in this position without the help of Calmer Lives.” - Calvert family
“Howard helped us to reconnect with our children and enabled us to further support each of them individually. Howard provided some one to one consultation with one of the children who was particularly struggling and we feel all of us are happier, calmer and much more understanding of each others needs as a direct result of this.” Claire-Marie Hunt
What impact did consultation support have for you during your attendance?
It was specifically around attending university. It allowed us to identify problems, and to formulate a plan that meant Zof could identify herself when things were not going well (as well as me understand better why these things were happening) and ultimately decide when it was time to stop and change direction.
Did the support have a lasting impact for yourself / family?
Yes, Zof (PDA Autistic ADHDer with CFS) had autonomy and support to see that university was not manageable for her, and to come home and pursue a much lower demand lifestyle. After most of a year in burnout, she started volunteering with the local wildlife trust and gained a place on 'wild paths' a year long practical training programme. Since then she has spent a year on a local farm horse logging and has a part time job with a local charity. I have been able to support her through this, she still lives at home full time and we have both adjusted our expectations of what the future might look like.
“Jennifer has been and still is a huge support for us, not only offering consistent guidance and knowledge around all areas of our complex child and family but also supporting applications, referrals along with propping up my mental health” - Curtis family
"My thoughts on this are that this is the only service that has actually worked from our perspective. You have helped us to understand autism and neurodiversity; how to be better parents for Audrey; and allowed us a therapeutic (empathic, non judgmental) space to offload and share where we're at. I feel the system around supporting SEN kids is highly dysfunctional, shaming, pathologising (of kids and parents), gaslighting, unscientific and unintelligent. Having to operate in that system requires a need for resilience and an ability to differentiate between truth and bull***; and the space we've had with you has helped on both those accounts, and thus stopped us going crazy! This of course then allows us to be better parents to Audrey, and not to pass the pathologising / gaslighting / shaming onto her." - Mood family
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