Family Kinnections

12/05/2025

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12/02/2025

🌟 Not Your Typical Teen Group — Now in Welland!

Wednesdays • 6–8pm • Starts January 7, 2025
For neurodivergent teens (13–17)

Many neurodivergent teens want connection, community, and a place where they don’t have to mask —
but typical therapy environments feel overwhelming, demand-heavy, or simply “not for them.”

Some teens shut down with direct questioning.
Some feel judged or misunderstood.
Some don’t want a clinical-feeling space — they want something real, relational, and youth-led.

This group was created for them.

💛 A Therapy Group Designed for Teens Who Need Connection — On Their Terms

This is a low-demand, youth-driven psychotherapy group that blends play, conversation, and shared activities to support:

✔ Social connection and belonging
✔ Identity exploration
✔ Coping and communication skills
✔ Reducing masking and increasing authenticity
✔ Emotional regulation through safe, supported peer interaction
✔ Confidence and comfort in group spaces
✔ Navigating friendships and everyday teen stressors

If your teen wants connection without the pressure, this is the gentle on-ramp they’ve been asking for.

🌈 What Makes This Group Different?
Neurodiversity Affirming

We support each teen’s natural way of thinking, feeling, and engaging. No pressure to be “more typical.” Ever.

Youth Driven

Teens tell us what works for them. Activities and conversations follow their lead, not a rigid curriculum.

Low Demand, High Acceptance

Participation is flexible.
They can talk or listen. Join a game or hang back.
Therapeutic work happens through connection, not pressure.

Therapeutic Goals — Delivered in a Natural, Relational Way

Support for coping, emotional regulation, communication skills, and identity development is woven into play, conversation, and shared experiences — not worksheets or forced sharing.

Facilitated by a Registered Psychotherapist

This is clinical group therapy, delivered in a way that feels safe, relaxed, and youth-led.
OAP funding eligible and may be covered by extended health benefits.

🎮 What We Do Together

Play games and collaborate

Hang out, decompress, eat snacks

Practice communication, problem-solving, coping, and social skills in a natural, low-pressure way

Talk about life, stress, identity, and friendships

Build real connections with peers who “get it”

Therapeutic goals are met through supported social interaction, not demands.

📍 Program Details

When: Wednesdays, 6–8pm
Starts: January 7, 2025
Where: Welland, ON
Cost: $190/week • registration in 6-week blocks
Facilitator: Registered Psychotherapist (CRPO)
Funding: OAP eligible; extended benefits may apply

💬 Why Parents Choose This Group

- Your teen needs connection but shuts down in traditional therapy.
-They want friends, but social groups at school are overwhelming.
-Masking all day leaves them drained — they need a space where they can just be.
-We’ve tried other groups. They were too structured or too talk-heavy.
-My teen needs therapeutic support, but in a way that feels safe, not clinical.

This group blends therapeutic support with a format that feels human, responsive, and grounded in relationship.

✨ Ready to Register?

We keep groups intentionally small to honour sensory needs and promote safety.
Spaces are limited.

👉 DM to register
👉 Email: admin@familykinnections.ca

👉 Call/Text: 888-530-8682

Your teen deserves a place where support feels easy — and where they never have to mask who they are.

11/25/2025

Still some space in this supervision group. An opportunity to learn about PDA in a relaxed atmosphere, guided by your needs as a professional. Ask questions, discuss cases, review the research, learn from lived experience..

Pathological Demand Avoidance. Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. PDA.

If you work with children and youth, you may have come across these terms.

PDA is an emerging conceptualization for understanding extreme demand avoidance in children and youth.

Did you know:
PDA is linked to extreme, anxiety-driven avoidance of everyday demands — even those the person wants to do.
It’s often mislabelled as ODD, “defiance,” or poor parenting.

Traditional behaviour strategies can backfire with PDA profiles, increasing distress and eroding trust.

Can show up as chronic irritability, agitation, anger, and aggression.

Can also present as shut-downs, people pleasing, depression and anxiety.

Join us for an 4-week supervision group that aims to deepen our understanding of PDA and support clinicians in effectively supporting children and families.

Through education, discussion, and case presentations this group will support you in understanding the PDA profile and effectively supporting families to navigate their needs.
From a nervous-system, attachment, and trauma-informed lens participants will:
Explore the research on PDA
Learn to spot PDA
Learn strategies that help families (and understand what can make things worse)
Talk through cases and discuss support plans

Supervisor:
In addition to a registered psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, and PhD candidate, I'm a neurodivergent parent raising kids with a PDA profile.

After using every strategy I learned over my 20+ year career in children's mental health with my own family, I faced the realization that everything seemed to be escalating the issue in my own home, rather than helping.

5 years ago I began to learn about PDA, first as a parent, then as a clinician. It made so much sense for understanding the children I was seeing in my practice. Kids who experienced frequent meltdowns, school refusal, and even refusal to leave the car to come into session. These parents tried everything!! Charts, incentives, consistent consequences, praise, schedules and routine (and much, much more). I learned what tools support PDA'ers and which ones don't. Moreover, I tried these tools out in my own home and in my own parenting. I learned first-hand and through my clients about the support that is needed.

In practice, I adopt a neurodiversity-affirming lens to supporting families. This means non-pathologizing and being focused on the lived experiences of those I support. I'm grounded in trauma-informed care, polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and neurobiologically informed interventions. I meet the criteria set out by CRPO for clinical supervision.
Supervision format: A blend of education, discussion, and case presentations.
📅 Starts December 2nd • Weekly, 2 hours -4 sessions total
💻 Online • Closed group (6–8 spots)
💵 $80/session -2 hours
✅ CRPO supervision hours eligible
📩 Reserve your spot — meghan@familykinnections.ca

11/21/2025

11/20/2025

🌱 What Collaborative, Best-Practice Engagement Looks Like in Children’s Psychotherapy

When you’re seeking support for your child, the approach matters just as much as the intervention. Families deserve care that is respectful, responsive, and grounded in evidence-informed practice — not outdated assumptions or compliance-focused methods.

Here are some signs that you’re in a collaborative, child-centred therapeutic relationship:

1. Your lived experience is valued

A best-practice clinician treats you as the expert on your child.
They listen deeply, ask thoughtful questions, and hold your insights as essential data.
You don’t have to “prove” your child’s needs or fight to be heard.

2. Cultural and contextual understanding

Good care never exists in a vacuum.
Your therapist should be asking about the unique culture of your family — including neurodivergence, homeschooling/unschooling values, sensory needs, communication styles, burnout, or anything else that shapes your daily life.

3. Emotional and psychological safety for the whole family

Safety is more than just being “nice.”
It means:

You’re not asked to re-tell distressing stories unnecessarily

Your child is not pushed beyond their nervous system’s capacity

You’re not judged for your parenting decisions, neurodivergent communication patterns, or advocacy needs

Accessibility needs are normalized and respected

There’s transparency around recommendations and next steps

If you feel dread, shame, confusion, or like you have to mask — that’s a sign something is off.

4. A shift from “compliance” to connection

Best-practice care is not about getting children to comply.
It’s about regulation, safety, relationship, and skill-building that honours the child’s autonomy and neurobiology.
Support should feel compassionate and collaborative — never coercive.

5. Shared planning and clear communication

You should have a voice in session goals, priorities, and pace.
Your therapist should:

Explain why they suggest certain approaches

Invite your feedback

Collaborate on home strategies that are realistic for your family

Be responsive when something isn’t working

You should never feel like decisions are made about your child without your involvement.

6. Evidence-informed, up-to-date practice

The field evolves. Best practice means:

Integrating trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming models

Recognizing when certain interventions (like CBT for PDA) may not be appropriate

Staying curious, humble, and open to learning

Using approaches that support emotional regulation, attachment, and connection

Curiosity is a clinical skill — and your therapist should have it.

🌿 When therapy is collaborative, it feels like…

Relief

Clarity

Being understood

A shared plan

Less shame, more connection

Your child being seen and honoured for who they are

If your family is looking for support that centres safety, relationship, and neurodiversity-affirming practice, we’re here.

You don’t have to navigate this alone.


Alt Text:
Yellow handwritten-style text on a white background reads, “Effective therapy isn’t done to a child — it’s built with the child and their family.” At the bottom right corner is the Family Kinnections logo: a simple yellow outline of a house with a heart incorporated into the roofline, beside the words “FAMILY KiNnections” in teal and green lettering.

11/18/2025

If you want to learn more about strewing in psychotherapy, register for my upcoming supervision group, starting December 2!

11/18/2025

Did you know that I have put together an online learning resource on PDA for professionals? It is free to access and includes peer-reviewed literature on PDA, vetted books and resources, and suggestions of public figures who know their stuff. We are just beginning to understand PDA and how to support parents and kids. Even if you can't make my upcoming professional supervision/consultation group, feel free to access the classroom for resources -

Join our PDA-Informed supervision group to learn about pathological demand avoidance and support families effectively.

11/12/2025

I'm a little fired up today. Over the past couple of weeks, I've encountered the same concern from a number of systems representatives (i.e. education, mental health). The cited concern is the mandate to provide evidence-based practice (EBP), and an inability to do that to meet the needs of PDA autistic children because PDA isn't found in the DSM.

First, let's be clear: the DSM is not an intervention manual. It is a diagnostic manual, last updated in approximately 2022. It is also flawed in many, many ways — that’s a whole other conversation.

But here's the thing: the interventions that support PDA autistic children are evidence-based.
They are grounded in decades of solid research on relational safety, self-regulation, attachment, and nervous system science. We’re talking about frameworks like Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (Ross Greene), Child-Centered Play Therapy (Landreth & Bratton), Polyvagal Theory (Porges), Stuart Shanker’s Self-Reg, and relationally focused, trauma-informed care.

These are all well-established, empirically supported interventions. The problem isn’t that the evidence doesn’t exist — the problem is that systems are hung up on the label. Because PDA isn’t listed as its own diagnostic category, some professionals feel their hands are tied. But ethical practice doesn’t require a DSM code. It requires responsiveness to human need.

And let’s be clear: there is research.
There are peer-reviewed studies on PDA dating back to at least 2003 — including work by Elizabeth Newson, O’Nions, and others. The literature may still be developing, but the existence of ongoing inquiry itself signals clinical relevance. Science doesn’t begin and end with the DSM.

It’s also time we break free from the narrow confines of the medical model. Evidence isn’t limited to randomized controlled trials. Evidence exists in qualitative data, case studies, practitioner expertise, and lived experience. These are all valid and essential forms of knowledge — especially when we’re talking about complex neurodivergent presentations that defy tidy categorization.

A decolonizing lens reminds us that Western, medicalized ways of knowing are not the only legitimate sources of truth. Indigenous, community, and relational knowledge systems have long understood regulation, connection, and collective care without reducing human experience to diagnostic codes. Honouring these ways of knowing expands, rather than diminishes, our understanding of what it means to support children well.

Weaponizing “evidence-based practice” to deny support is not scientific integrity — it’s administrative avoidance. It’s a failure of imagination, not a lack of evidence.

So let’s stop hiding behind the DSM. Let’s remember what EBP actually means:
1️⃣ the best available research,
2️⃣ plus clinician expertise,
3️⃣ plus the lived experience and values of the client and family.

That’s the true model. That’s the ethical model. And that’s the one that keeps kids safe, supported, and seen.

11/11/2025

Pathological Demand Avoidance. Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. PDA.

If you work with children and youth, you may have come across these terms.

PDA is an emerging conceptualization for understanding extreme demand avoidance in children and youth.

Did you know:
PDA is linked to extreme, anxiety-driven avoidance of everyday demands — even those the person wants to do.
It’s often mislabelled as ODD, “defiance,” or poor parenting.

Traditional behaviour strategies can backfire with PDA profiles, increasing distress and eroding trust.

Can show up as chronic irritability, agitation, anger, and aggression.

Can also present as shut-downs, people pleasing, depression and anxiety.

Join us for an 4-week supervision group that aims to deepen our understanding of PDA and support clinicians in effectively supporting children and families.

Through education, discussion, and case presentations this group will support you in understanding the PDA profile and effectively supporting families to navigate their needs.
From a nervous-system, attachment, and trauma-informed lens participants will:
Explore the research on PDA
Learn to spot PDA
Learn strategies that help families (and understand what can make things worse)
Talk through cases and discuss support plans

Supervisor:
In addition to a registered psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, and PhD candidate, I'm a neurodivergent parent raising kids with a PDA profile.

After using every strategy I learned over my 20+ year career in children's mental health with my own family, I faced the realization that everything seemed to be escalating the issue in my own home, rather than helping.

5 years ago I began to learn about PDA, first as a parent, then as a clinician. It made so much sense for understanding the children I was seeing in my practice. Kids who experienced frequent meltdowns, school refusal, and even refusal to leave the car to come into session. These parents tried everything!! Charts, incentives, consistent consequences, praise, schedules and routine (and much, much more). I learned what tools support PDA'ers and which ones don't. Moreover, I tried these tools out in my own home and in my own parenting. I learned first-hand and through my clients about the support that is needed.

In practice, I adopt a neurodiversity-affirming lens to supporting families. This means non-pathologizing and being focused on the lived experiences of those I support. I'm grounded in trauma-informed care, polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and neurobiologically informed interventions. I meet the criteria set out by CRPO for clinical supervision.
Supervision format: A blend of education, discussion, and case presentations.
📅 Starts December 2nd • Weekly, 2 hours -4 sessions total
💻 Online • Closed group (6–8 spots)
💵 $80/session -2 hours
✅ CRPO supervision hours eligible
📩 Reserve your spot — meghan@familykinnections.ca

11/06/2025

Lately I’ve been sitting with how often we expect kids to adapt to systems that were never designed with their needs in mind.

When a child struggles to fit, the response is too often to “fix” the child — to call in experts, to manage behaviours, to reinforce compliance. But what if the problem isn’t the child at all?

What if the system itself needs to evolve?

It can be disheartening to see innovation rejected because it doesn’t fit neatly into what’s already in place. But that’s how meaningful change begins — by questioning the structures that no longer serve.

Let’s stop asking kids to bend themselves into systems that weren’t built for them. Let’s start imagining systems flexible enough to meet every child where they are.

The issue isn’t people trying to make it work. It’s the rigidity of the systems themselves — and that’s something we *can* change.

11/05/2025

I love this post too much not to share. https://jamiemarich.substack.com/p/therapy-is-not-a-science?r=467xkt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwdGRzaAN3mxVjbGNrA3eZN2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHqF-YKS58Q-6hmpKgUsAMSqdtnGRyROHFV2lcOkmJPEk9KTSZo7wxR8fofpd_aem_vwF3utQz0oU2RmyMZtHEfg&triedRedirect=true