Prevention and Early Mental Health
Prevention of developmental difficulties starts with monitoring children’s overall development as early as the first months of life. Our team has extensive expertise in recognizing the earliest signs of developmental concerns and attachment difficulties and is happy to help families learn more about their child progress and developmental expectations.
Monitoring the overall development as early as one month can help determine the risk for delays and answer any questions parents might have before these become concerns regarding their child overall wellbeing.
Early Developmental Screening at The Willow Centre
Ages and Stages Questionnaires for children from 1 month to 5 years allow families to learn about their child’s progress along the following developmental domains: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving and personal-social, as well as social-emotional domains – see link for a detailed description [https://agesandstages.com/free-resources/articles/7-behavioral-areas-screened-by-asqse-2/]. The ASQ consists of a series of parent / caregiver completed questionnaires that screen and monitor the child’s development. It can be used at a single point in time for a one-time screening or at numerous intervals for ongoing monitoring. The results determine if the child’s development is on track or should receive a more in-depth assessment to determine the need for specialized services.
Our clinicians combine an evidence-based tool (which is endorsed by the Infant and Early Mental Health Promotion at SickKids) with their extensive clinical expertise to support healthier child-parent interactions and parenting approaches to scaffold the child’s overall development.
Please note that this is not a diagnostic tool, and we will not be able to provide you with a diagnostic at the completion.
At our Centre the screening includes 3 sessions as follows:
- parents complete the Intake forms either electronically or at the time of the first session
- one session with parents only to discuss concerns, short developmental history and family context
- parents go home with a set of questionnaires for them and other caregivers involved in caring for the child (if applicable); when completed, the questionnaires are brought back to us for scoring / review
- one family session for play / interactions observation and reflections with parents
- one session with parents for feedback and recommendations
- follow-up monitoring sessions available – frequency depends on each family / child needs.
Sessions are in person and 50 – 60 minutes long.
Fees are typically $ 250/ session with payment at the time of the session.
There are no additional fees for scoring and reviewing the questionnaires.
Parents / caregivers are welcome to contact our office at 416-25-1540 Ext. 21 or contact@thewillowcentre.com to schedule a complimentary phone intake interview with our Intake clinicians.