Support, training and resources to help child therapists, counsellors and teachers work effectively and confidently with children with emotional/behavioural/social challenges
You are a teacher, school counsellor, child psychologist, youth worker, SSO, allied health worker or other professional who works with children and families.
Your day involves supporting children (and parents/caregivers) with managing anxiety, frustration, social situations, trauma, behaviour, disability and difficult life or family events.
Increasing numbers have anxiety, ASD, ADHD, ODD or sensory processing issues. Even without formal diagnoses, many children seem to be becoming more complex.
At times your job is isolating – you’d like to have quick and easy access to another experienced professional to ask them questions or get support
You would like new ideas, activities, videos, articles and resources to use with children and parents – and don’t have time to come up with them yourself
Some days you feel a lack of confidence in what you are doing with families and worry it’s not working! (join the club!)
1. Managing worry and anxiety,
2. Learning to feel calm and co-operative,
3. Friendship skills.
See some examples of our 20 animated video lessons and worksheets for children
In our “Professionals only” library we have videos, articles and some brief research reviews which help professionals working with children get access to professional development in your own time, and from your own therapy/classroom/home.
We are still building this library, but currently have approximately 15 articles, 11 training videos, 5 literature reviews and one webinar – specifically for counsellors, therapists, allied health workers and teachers who work with children.
The Calm Kid Central Team
The Calm Kid Central Team is made up of a five person child psychologist panel, our community education officer and our admin and technical support team.
Our clinical child psychologists all have Masters degrees in psychology, have worked exclusively with children and families for between 8 and 22 years and are fully registered and accredited by APHRA. We are also passionate about children’s well being. We believe the evidence best supports a cognitive-behavioural approach to children’s mental and emotional health. However, we are also strongly influenced by attachment theory and believe children’s emotional well being is best served by having them feel securely loved and safe in their relationships, use lots of mindfuless/acceptance commitment therapy strategies and ideas and also take a systems approach to working with children – they don’t exist in a vaccuum! We also try to take a “symptoms based/solutions orientated” way of working in trying to focus on the here and now. We steer away from a purely behavioural understanding of children’s challenges, and tend to be wary of punishment/excessive use of time out, although understand that for some families these strategies might be useful when used gently and appropriately. For more information about each of our team, you can click on the “plus” signs below.
Kirrilie Smout (Clinical Psychologist and Director of Calm Kid Central and Developing Minds Psychology)
Today Kirrilie is the director of Developing Minds Psychology and manages and supports the team of 17 child and adolescent psychologists who work with her there. She also provides seminars and training for young people, teachers, health professionals and schools around Australia.
Kirrilie has received a number of awards, grants and prizes for her speaking, research and consultancy work. She is regularly consulted by print, radio and TV media in relation to psychological issues and has numerous articles published in a variety of newspapers and journals. She has written three books about and for young people, is the developer of the online program Calm Kid Central, and is the SA convenor of the Child, Adolescent and Family Interest group for the SA chapter of the Australian Psychological Society.
Taryn Gray (Clinical Child Psychologist)
Taryn takes an eclectic approach as a Clinical Psychologist, and has worked in specialist settings with adults and young people.
She works particularly with children and young people, and has experience in working with separation anxiety, phobias, mutism, behaviour problems, substance use, and friendship difficulties among many other issues.
Taryn is the clinical programs and systems manager for Developing Minds and develops and monitors systems to make sure the practice complies with all relevant funding body (including NDIS, Medicare and others) requirements.
Penny Sih (Clinical Child Psychologist)
Penny has always been passionate about working with young people and their families and has a talent for connecting with young people. She has worked as a psychologist since 2004 in both the private sector and a variety of government settings including Child Protection, Community Health and Education. Penny’s roles have included providing therapy and conducting assessments with kids and teens and providing professional development and support for families, teachers and health care workers.
Penny draws on a range of evidence-based frameworks and adapts her approaches to meet the needs of clients and their families. However, her work most often draws from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Attachment Theory (for example Circle of Security©).
Penny aims to help children and young people understand that their wide ranging emotions are all part of what makes them human but to also equip them with skills to better manage their tricky emotions (e.g. anxiety, depression, sadness, anger) and adapt their behaviour (e.g. conflict management, social skills, avoidance, challenging behaviour) to lead a full and rewarding life despite any hardship they experience. In her work with families, she works to support parents and caregivers to better understand and be attuned to their child’s needs in order to more effectively support their emotional and behavioural development.
Although she loves working with all age groups, Penny has a particular interest in working with young children and their families and has many years of experience working in Early Childhood Settings. Penny is also trained to run Circle of Security© – Parenting Groups .
Penny is the Team Supervisor at Aberfoyle Park and provides clinical and professional supervision and crisis supervision to the other Developing Minds psychologists at Aberfoyle Park.
Jacinda Fisher (Clinical Child Psychologist)
Jacinda has worked as a psychologist over the last eleven years working in both the public and private sectors. She worked as a psychologist with the Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) for many years and therefore has extensive knowledge in childhood development and the assessment and treatment of learning difficulties, social, emotional and behavioural issues. Within DECD, Jacinda provided support to teachers, SSO’s and families about how to support kids with extra emotional/social/learning needs at school and in the classroom. Jacinda has also worked previously as a psychologist within an Adelaide R-12 school and as well as providing support to students, provided significant numbers of hours of consultation to school staff and parents about how to manage student well being within a classroom and home setting.
As well as working within schools and the education department, Jacinda has worked as a research psychologist with the Women’s and Children’s hospital within the neonatal department and the child nutrition team, and also for sleep clinics at Flinders University and the Repat Sleep clinic. Jacinda also has experience working within the drug and alcohol area, adult mental health and child health care settings. Through her PhD research, she is also knowledgeable in the areas of caregiving, coping, illness and grief and loss.
Finally, Jacinda has also had many years of working with children and teens individually in a therapy setting. As a result, she is passionate about helping young people who are finding life difficult because of learning issues, eating problems, sleep difficulties, family and relationship concerns, anxiety, depression, issues related to gender and sexuality and other issues.
She is keen to help people learn ways of managing such issues so that they don’t get in the way of living the life they want.
Jacinda’s therapeutic approach is eclectic and adapted to the individual client and their presenting concerns. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) feature predominantly in her work.
Kate Manning (Clinical Child Psychologist)
Kate has experience providing support to children and young people who are encountering difficulties with their emotions, adjustment, peer and/or family relationships, behaviour or learning, as well as supporting their families. Kate has gained knowledge and experiencing through working with children and young people with a wide range of medical conditions or disabilities and has specialist knowledge in the area of paediatric acquired brain injury.
Kate draws on a number of evidence-based approaches, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, in addition to her knowledge of child development and paediatric neuropsychology, to assist in her understanding of the challenges children and young people face. This understanding allows Kate to tailor her therapeutic approach to suit each child or young person individually.
Kate aims to work in collaboration with children, young people, and their families to assist them in building on their strengths and learning further skills to help them to manage the difficulties they are experiencing. Kate is passionate about supporting children and young people of all ages and enjoys using humour and play in her therapy sessions to facilitate children and young peoples’ understanding and engagement in the therapeutic process.
Sandra Massey (Community Education Officer)
Sandra is a social worker with 12 years of experience working in the child and family well being and mental health fields. She has worked in management, consultation and clinical roles within government, education and private settings. She is passionate about helping clinicians and services to provide high quality support to families. At Calm Kid Central, Sandra helps professionals and families learn about the Calm Kid Central program and help them access and find the resources in the program they need.
Also – as a professional, you will also have access to the separate “Parent/Carer question centre. In this question centre, parents ask our psychologists questions about their children at home.
You will be able to read our child psychologists’ detailed answers to these questions. It’s a bit like being able to “sit in” on another professional’s education sessions with other parents – which can give you ideas about how you might support parents/carers too.
What kinds of questions have our child psychologists answered for professionals on Calm Kid Central?
What resources do you use with children who have experienced trauma?
How do you help 6 and 7 year olds develop flexibility when things don’t go their way?
What resources do you have for children to help develop “body awareness” when they are getting angry?
How do you work with 10 year olds and their parents who report past bullying?
How would you help a 7 year old adjust to divorce/family separation?
What ideas do you have to help Year 1 with psycho-somatic complaints/constantly hurting themselves?
How to help an 11 yo develop better theory of mind?
What is the current thinking on using rewards in the classroom from a psychological perspective?
And many, many more.
What kinds of questions have our child psychologists answered for parents on Calm Kid Central this year?
What is the right age for a mobile phone?
How do I help my 8 year old be less sad/anxious about going to school?
What do I do about meltdowns in my 10 yo?
How do I help my 9yo manage grief?
How do I cope with my own feelings about my child’s learning disorder?
How do I help my 7 and 10yo be more organised/look after their possession?
What do I do about my 5 yo not focussing at school?
What do you do about children constantly getting out of bed at night?
And many, many more.
Evidence for Calm Kid Pro and Calm Kid Central
Nearly 2000 families and professionals use Calm Kid Central
and Calm Kid Pro.
94% of children (as reported by their parents) experienced a significant reduction in a) anxiety, worry and stress symptoms, b) difficulties managing frustration, following instructions and co-operation behaviours and c) attention and concentration problems after 4 months of being part of the program.
- Parents reported a statistically significant increase in parental adjustment and well-being
- 97% of parents said they believed Calm Kid Central had been either “quite”, “very” or “extremely helpful” for their family
Professionals reported a statistically significant increase in confidence in and satisfaction with the resources they had available for working with children with mental health challenges after 4 months of using Calm Kid Pro. 100% of professionals using the program rated it a 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 for usefulness in their work.
(Measures: Pediatric Symptom Checklist, Parent and Family Adjustment Scale, Professional confidence/resources scale – N=16 for professionals, N = 120 for parents)
Costs
$37.50 per month or $220 per year (save $230)
(or FREE if you have a coupon)*
No minimum commitment – easy to cancel anytime in two clicks
Learning Centre for Kids (All courses, videos, activity sheets and posters)
Learning Centre for Parents (All courses, videos, tip sheets, transcripts, Questions guides)
Learning Centre for Professionals (All courses, videos, tip sheets, transcripts, Questions guides
Question/Help Centre (ask unlimited questions of our child psychologists)
What’s most helpful is (being able to distribute info, particularly when I know about kids going through particular situations – and the fact sheets, work sheets and videos for SSOs to use with kids I case-manage.
I am so glad I found [Calm Kid Pro]. It has been a game changer for me in how I help children through the issues that arise for them.
I feel confident that the information is professional and up to date.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I sign up and then don't find any of the resources helpful?
Are all the videos and resources available as soon as I sign up? Will there be more released?
How do I pay? Are there any extra charges?
I'm not sure about the cost
It’s always hard to know what to spend professional development money on. However, considering the average cost of individual supervision, training workshops and the time spent looking for resources, we think the cost of a program which provides unlimited text supervision, training you can do at home and resources to use with children and parents, we think the cost of Calm Kid Pro is absolutely worth the money and time saved.
What if I want to cancel my membership?
I work with children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder,autism, ADHD, learning disorder, speech and language disorder or global delay. Will Calm Kid Central still be useful in my work?
Do I have to download any programs or software?
I'm worried about my privacy, I don't want everyone to know about the questions I have with my students/clients
Firstly, Calm Kid Central is not open to the public – only signed up members who have signed a disclaimer and been provided with education about confidentiality. No information on Calm Kid Central is accessible via a public google search.
Second, all members (professional and parent members) when they sign up are asked to choose their own username – an alias. We have the details of people’s names “behind” the site (for safety reasons) but no real names are used within the Calm Kid Central program.
Third, we also ask professionals and parents to NOT use the name of their child, disguise any identifying details of children/schools they are working with. If we see any identifiable details on the site, we remove them as quickly as possible. This way families and professionals don’t accidentally identify themselves – and you can feel free to ask any questions without feeling worried that about being judged negatively in some way.
Fourth, just as a reminder, the professional Question centre is only open to professionals who work with children (teachers, child psychologists, allied health workers and counsellors).
One final note – it is important to know that like all professionals, we are mandated notifiers of child abuse. This means that if we receive information on this site that a child is being abused, then we are legally obliged to report this (which we will do using the details members give us when signing up for the site). This happens very rarely, but it is important to know upfront.
I'm interested in every family/staff member at our school having access to CKC
I'm not ready to sign up but I'd like to get your free articles
Is there a discount if more than one staff member at our school/organisation join?
3-4 memberships (in same organisation) – $495 for a year of access of all of you
5-10 memberships (in same organisation)- $685 for a year of access for all of you
11-15 memberships (in same organisation)- $895 for a year of access for all of you
I have more questions about Calm Kid Central, how do I get in touch with you?
You can also call us during business hours 9-5pm AEST on 08 8357 1711
I'm not sure yet - may I please have a free two day trial?
Go here: My free trial
Want to see some examples? Click the play button below for snippets of our kids videos.
All Major Cards Accepted.