Parent Groups

Selective Mutism Parent Group

SM Parent group is the foundational learning space for parents of children with selective mutism. Here you will deep dive into selective mutism, PCIT for SM skills, important principles in treating SM, and SPACE tools to support you from an anxiety perspective. In addition, we dive into social (language) pragmatics and find the overlapping themes to utilize our best skills. Parents leave group empowered and well equipped to apply their new skills in the community.

Parents love this group! In addition to it being a great learning group, parents enjoy connecting with others who have a similar experience in parenting.

7 weeks in duration

Group typically fills and occurs 3-4 times per year

SPACE Group

SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions and is a parent-based treatment program for children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD, and related problems.

SPACE was developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center. SPACE has been thoroughly researched and found to be efficacious in randomized controlled clinical trials. Originally, SPACE was developed to support families in individual therapy and it has since been applied in group contexts to support access to treatment.

Some of the main anxiety related problems treated with SPACE: 

Separation anxiety

Social anxiety

Generalized anxiety

Fears and phobias

Panic disorder and Agoraphobia

Selective mutism

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Picky Eating (ARFID)

Group Format and Treatment Goals

  • Parents (and other caregivers) participate in SPACE treatment sessions. In most cases the child or adolescent does not need to attend the treatment sessions.

  • Parents who participate in SPACE will learn skills and tools to help their child overcome anxiety, OCD or related problems.

  • The treatment focuses on changes that parents can make to their own behavior, they do not need to make their child change. 

  • The two main changes that parents learn to make in SPACE treatment are to respond more supportively to their anxious child and to reduce the accommodations they have been making to the child symptoms. 

Learn more about SPACE books and research here.