Birchwood Psychology

09/08/2025

🚸 Is Your Child Struggling to Attend School? You're Not Alone.

School Refusal — sometimes called School Avoidance or School Phobia — happens when a student finds it extremely difficult to attend or stay in school due to anxiety, depression, or other emotional challenges.

This issue doesn’t just impact the student — it can affect the whole family. But there is a path forward.

🌟 Our specialized services are designed to support children and their families in understanding and overcoming school refusal through:

✅ Evidence-based assessment & therapy
✅ Collaborative work with parents, school staff, and the student
✅ Skill-building to reduce anxiety and emotional distress
✅ Practical strategies for re-engaging with school and learning
✅ Ongoing support and education for families

Our goal? To help students move from school refusal to school success — emotionally, socially, and academically.

📍 Now accepting referrals for students aged 8–12.
🤝 Parent/guardian involvement is a key part of this process.

📩 Contact us today to learn more or to schedule a consultation.

Send a message to learn more

08/22/2025

Is your child struggling with attention, learning, or behaviour at home or school?

We’re now booking ADHD & Psychoeducational Assessments into November 2025!

These assessments can help you:
Understand how your child learns best, identify underlying diagnoses, and access the right supports.

Let’s work together to give your child the tools they need to succeed.

Call Bailey to ask questions or to book your child's assessment at 902 304 5527.

Private psychology practice in Sydney, Nova Scotia, providing comprehensive assessments and intervention for children, adolescents, and young adults.

08/13/2025

Is your child having a tough time with talking, pronouncing words, or putting together sentences?

At Birchwood Psychology our Speech-Language Pathologist Danielle Criss works with children to make speech therapy fun, engaging, and confidence boosting.

Summer is a great time to work on these skills with your children to prepare for the coming school year!

Give us a call at 902-304-5527 or reach out by email at info@birchwoodassessments.com

07/04/2025

We’re happy to share that our Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), Danielle Criss, will be available throughout July and August to support clients currently receiving services and to take on new clients. With the addition of new days and time slots, there are immediate openings.

The summer months can be the perfect time to give your child’s speech and language skills a boost before starting school, or to avoid a regression in the skills that they worked on during the school year. Individualized goals and sessions will help make communication fun and progress attainable. Give Bailey a call at 902-304-5527 if you’d like more info!

07/03/2025

We'd like to officially welcome Heather Rudderham to the team at Birchwood! Heather is a registered psychologist with over 8 years of clinical experience. She works with clients aged 16+, providing mental health assessments (excluding ADHD, Autism, and Personality Disorders), assessments for Veterans Affairs Canada, as well as therapy focusing on areas such as relationship issues, trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), gender and sexual identity exploration, Depression and Anxiety, life transitions, grief and loss, and anger management. She has openings as early as this summer so please reach out to Bailey at 902-304-5527 if interested in booking!

05/26/2025

We've had July and August assessment spots open up (for psych-eds and ADHD assessments only)! If you're interested in moving your current assessment appointment ahead or if you'd like to get booked in, give Bailey a call at 902-304-5527 :)

05/25/2025

Since we've had so much change here at Birchwood, we thought it was a good time to re-introduce our clinicians! Starting with Danielle Criss, our speech language pathologist.

Danielle provides expert speech and language therapy tailored to your child’s unique needs. Through play-based, engaging, and evidence-based approaches, she helps children build confidence in their communication skills. She also helps parents/ guardians build confidence in their ability to foster their child’s speech and language development. Working with toddlers to school-agers, Danielle provides a wide range of assessment and therapy services.

She also has immediate openings so feel free to reach out to Bailey at the office to book your appointment now!

04/13/2025

We’re excited to announce that we are increasing our services for speech language pathology in the coming months. We will be booking new speech-language assessments and therapy clients starting in July so please reach out to Bailey at the office if interested in learning more!

03/22/2025

The changes keep on coming at Birchwood!

We have moved to a new location: 1882 kings road (directly across from Hampton Estates in Sydney River). If you need any help with directions, feel free to reach out to Bailey at the office.

We can’t wait to welcome clients into this new space!

01/06/2025

We have another exciting announcement for clients and families! We would like to welcome Tess Carrigan to our team. As a registered clinical social worker, Tess will be starting full-time with Birchwood in February to help address the significant need for therapy services. She does not currently have a wait-list and is accepting clients ages 5+

If you'd like to learn a little more about Tess and the services she offers, please visit our website at www.birchwoodassessments.com or if you'd like to book an initial appointment, phone 902-304-5527 or email us at info@birchwoodassessments.com!

11/06/2024

Birchwood is now offering Speech Language Pathology services! We do not currently have a wait-list so please reach out if you'd like to set up an appointment:
902-304-5527 or info@birchwoodassessments.com

08/26/2024

We moved (but not far)! We are now next door in Suite 208 of the medical arts building. Feel free to stop by and see our new space!