Empowering Young
People for a
Brighter Tomorrow
Empowering Young
People for a
Brighter Tomorrow

Therapy for Children and Young People

Due to extensive formal education in clinical counseling psychotherapy, alongside additional graduation programs and certificates and almost 15 years of applied clinical experience, Teresa is able to integrate and combine different therapeutic approaches to deliver efficient and individually tailored-made interventions and treatment. Teresa’s main therapeutic approach is Integrative Therapy (IT).  In her work with children and young people, Teresa mainly combines the following therapeutic approaches:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
  • Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT)
  • Clinical Complex Trauma (CCTP)
  • Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT)
  • Play and Creative Arts Therapy (PT)
  • Creative Arts Therapy (CAT)
  • Mindfulness
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
  • Narrative Therapy (NT)
  • Jungian Analytical Therapy
  • Parent and Child Interactive Therapy (PCIT)
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
 

Teresa takes mental health a step further. She believes mental health care needs to focus on prevention of mental health difficulties, resilience and promotion of holistic health alongside work on mental health issues and illness. Both individual and group work are available. Group work can be delivered in premises of Face-It Psychotherapy, LLC in Palm Harbor, Florida but also on other locations like schools, nurseries and similar. Following groups for children and adolescents are currently available:

  • Resilience Program for Children & Young People
  • Self-esteem Program for Children and Young People
  • Social Skills Program for Children and Young People
  • Emotional Intelligence for Children and Young People
  • Anxiety Program for Children and Young People
 

If you have the need for some other specific kind of program or group work, Tersea will be very happy to talk to you and to develop and deliver a specific tailor-made program that suits your needs.

Teresa’s mission is to provide ways of healthier, better and longer life to her clients and their families. She is subspecialized and experienced in the field of child and adolescent trauma development. Aims of health psychology interventions for children/adolescents, their parents/carers and families are:

  • understanding of the illness according to developmental level
  • providing psychological support when diagnosed
  • facilitating adaptive adjustment to illness and treatment
  • developing or improving coping skills with short- and long-term condition or disease
  • preparation for medical and surgical procedures and hospital stay
  • EMDR pain management
  • relaxation program
  • mindfulness
  • anger management
  • improving quality of life
  • cognitive behavioral (CBT) interventions
  • play therapy (PT) interventions
  • cognitive behavioral play therapy (CBPT) interventions
  • creative arts therapy (CAT) interventions
  • therapeutic play
  • individual therapeutic stories
  • peer support groups
  • promoting holistic health and well-being
  • developing/improving healthy life-style
  • preventing illness

Counselling is used to work with children and young people who are experiencing less intense difficulties that require usually short-term treatment or intervention. The focus of counselling is more likely to be on specific problems, changes in life adjustments and fostering clients’ wellbeing. Counselling helps to resolve emotional, psychological and relationship issues. Person may be experiencing difficult and distressing events in their lives, such as:

  • bereavement
  • divorce of parents
  • difficulties in romantic relationship
  • self-esteem issues
  • school issue
  • health problems
  • anxiety
  • dissatisfaction with the life
 

Together with client and parents/carers it is discussed which type of services and length of work would work best taking into account needs of the client, issues and overall circumstances.

Resilience is an ability to overcome negative events or one’s capacity to “bounce back” from negative experiences. Children and young people’s cognitive and psychosocial functioning affects their ability to overcome adverse events.

Factors influencing resilience are:

  • a sense of competence
  • a sense of control
  • problem-solving skills
  • communication skills
  • empathy
  • reflective behavior
  • independence
  • social abilities
  • access to resources
 

This program is preventative and is specially designed to improve and develop core resilience skills of 3 age groups: early years, school age children and adolescents.

Sometimes we might feel powerless to change the things we find troubling. We may feel like we don’t have control over what we think and how we feel about ourselves. Self-esteem is about liking yourself and who you are.

You might have self-esteem difficulties if you:

  • don’t like or hate yourself
  • believe nobody likes you
  • fell worthless or not good enough
  • don’t believe you deserve happiness and good things in life
  • can’t recognize your strengths
  • can’t make decisions
  • can’t stand up for your rights
  • often blame yourself (even when it really isn’t your fault)
  • feel guilty when spending time and/or money on yourself
  • are low in confidence
 

If you find yourself in this description, then this program is for you. We will work on:

  • how to love yourself more
  • developing healthier attitude to self
  • accepting yourself self with all the positives and negatives everybody has
  • enabling to see your strengths
  • building or improving assertiveness
  • changing the way you think and behave
  • realistic expectation of self and world around you
  • problem-solving
  • decision-making
  • building or improving self-confidence
  • specific issues people in the group have

Relationships are important. Healthy friendships can bring an abundance of joy, happiness, support and feeling of being understood.

Low self-confidence, poor communication skills and social anxiety can prevent children from forming healthy bonds with others.

Poor social skills may lead to feelings of loneliness, sadness, depression, low self-esteem, challenging behaviors, and others. Unfortunately, poor social skills are often connected with inability to recognize peer pressure and bullying.

Due to intensive treatment and often isolation, many children develop social issues.

This program is designed to help children and young people that struggle with building relationships with others.

Ex-Path children are the children of international business-people, global educators, diplomats, missionaries, the military – anyone whose family has relocated/relocates because of a job placement. Born in one culture, raised in other(s). Their identity is most closely aligned with others raised like them, moving internationally. There is that feeling of being from everywhere and being from nowhere.

Immigration Children are those who families have relocated due to burdens in their country or origin, who come with immense trauma and vulnerabilities to a new homeland.

Expat Child Syndrome (ECS) is a term that has been coined by psychologists to describe an emotional stress in children caused by a move abroad.

Feeling out of place, constant process of adaptation to new, culture shock, steep process of learning new behavioral and cultural norms, feeling powerless/without control over own life, losing friends, pressure to gain new ones, changes in family dynamics, identity issues …

There is an abundance of loss which is often something that family doesn’t talk about.  Common presentation may be seclusion, loneliness, withdrawing from others, resentment toward parents, uncooperative or disruptive behavior.

Supporting, counselling or psychotherapy with ex-pat and third country children includes working on sense of belonging, recognition, connection, building social skills, feeling of safety, loss and grieving. Strong emphasis of Teresa’s work with these children is on building strengths and resilience.

The overall aim of this program is to improve the quality of life of children and young people. It facilitates processing experiences, changes, challenges and emotions their journey had brought. Themes of adjustment, doubt, coping, fears, anxiety, depression, stressful or traumatic events during treatment, changes that occurred in relationships, many losses person faced, helplessness and hopefulness, denial or avoidance might be addressed depending on the age of participants and their phase of treatment. Directive and non-directive approach is used to maximize safety of therapeutic process.

This is a closed group which means that the same group of people will participate from beginning till the end of group work.

Time to relax, enjoy and have some “ME” time. Safe space for stimulative discussions in closed group with focus on self-care, self-acceptance, positivity and mindfulness. Our discussions are based on topics important to participants. Sometimes being a Mum might overshadow other roles that we all have in life – being a sister, daughter, friend, wife/partner, employee, boss, volunteer, and others. This is a space to explore how becoming a Mum changed your life. Also, this is a safe space to unload potential difficulties, limitations, frustrations that might rise from the role of being Mum. At the same time, this is a space to celebrate your wonderful self from the perspective of all the roles you have in your life.  Coffee, Tea & cookies will be served on each session.

The aim of classroom and nursery observations is to document behaviors and to help provide insight to a child, parents/carers and teachers. Teachers are teaching and are typically focused on the overall learning of the entire class. It is not possible for a teacher to catch all of the details of classroom while teaching. An outside observer can sit in the classroom and observe a student or the entire class. These valuable insights (together with other information collected from the child, parents/carers and school/nursery) provide better understanding of child’s needs and are utilized to make psychological formulation and to provide adequate support for a child through documenting behaviors and creating care plan.

Meetings with school staff are also part of this service. If agreed with parents/carers, Teresa will attend meetings with nursery/school and that includes TAC (Team Around the Child) meetings. TAC meetings are joined work of different professionals involved in care of a child who share relevant information, discuss care plan with the aim to support, guide and advice.

Aim and possible benefits of communication and/or visit to preschool or school are always discussed with a child and parents/carers and are done only if parents/carers consent to it.

In-home therapy and home visits are a way to support children and young people, their parents and families when he/she can’t leave their home for various reasons. Psychological assessment, counselling, therapy and interventions are being offered through this service. The biggest advantages of home visits are that the services can be delivered to those who have difficulties or are unable to leave their home, home visits are comfortable for clients and gives opportunity to assess and intervene in the context.

It is the responsibility of the parents/carers to ensure privacy and confidentiality during the home visit.

Let's Face It Together!

Fees

Teresa McKenna, is a registered provider for several private health insurance companies such as Aetna, Aetna EAP, Cigna,  UHC EAP, BCBS, CompPsych, Humana, Optum, Optum Medicare, Optum EAP, and Curalink EAP who can offer reimbursement on session fees. Teresa McKenna is also eligible for registering with other insurances so please contact us to enquire. If you have health insurance you will usually need to provide a claim number to authorize sessions.

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