The Coral Tree team believe that, for meaningful change to occur in a child’s life, we must partner with the important people in their world. These people may include you, as their parent or carer, siblings, other important family members such as grandparents, as well as teachers and other professionals or supports in the community. We strive to understand your child’s mental health difficulties in the context of their experience of family, school, and the broader community – not simply considering your child, or children, on their own.
The most significant people in a child’s world are their family, and in particular their parents or carers.
This belief, along with the evidence-base for providing intervention to children, has led the Coral Tree team to work closely with parents and carers, empowering you to make changes in your child’s life and in the family as a whole. We have heard from many families who access Coral Tree that their child’s difficulties have had impact on all members of the family, and we work to support you to create meaningful shifts in the family dynamic and to increase a sense of connection between all family members.
This is the reason why, for many of the programs that Coral Tree offers, we require all members of the family who reside in a child’s household to attend – this starts from our first assessment and continues to programs such as the Family Residential Program, Day Attendance Program, or Clinical School Program.
Having your whole family involved allows our team to understand the relationships between all members, as well as shifts the focus of intervention from simply the child alone, to a broader message of increasing positive interactions within a family. It helps to address goals that have meaning for all members of your family, and to take into account everyone’s perspectives.
Our team know that this is a big commitment for families – we’d love to be able to explain our approach in more depth during that first assessment, and we invite you to read some families' testimonials to share in their experience.
The experience of being at Coral Tree?
Here are some stories written by parents and carers over the years, some who have accessed our Family Residential Program, and some who were also part of our Clinical School Program.
