9-week Autism Parental Stress Relief Program for School Refusal

The Parental Stress Centre has been working with parents since 2007.  We have worked with hundreds of families with autistic children outside and within our autism specific program.  We believe every parent knows their child best and is their best teacher.  We provide support for parents to improve their wellbeing, and lots of evidenced-based tools so they are better equipped to support their child.

Jackie Hall, founder of The Parental Stress Centre and this course facilitator, is a qualified counsellor and member of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA). She has worked in mental health for the past 12 years, with extensive experience in trauma, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, eating disorders, and more. 

• Specialised skills in CBT for Anxiety and Depression.
• 11 years of Trauma Counselling experience including EMDR (for PTSD, anxiety and depression).
• Residential Youth Carer executing Therapeutic Crisis Intervention Training for Challenging child behaviours, Solution-Focussed Therapy and Trauma-informed approaches.  
• Registered 'Circle of Security' Facilitator
• Tuning into Teens accredited facilitator

Working in residential youth facilities, Jackie often worked with autistic children with co-existing complex backgrounds, applying the very strategies you will learn in this program, including therapeutic crisis intervention strategies for complex and aggressive behaviours.

As part of this course creation, Jackie Hall also became an Applied Behaviour Therapist, however soon realised that some of their approaches were not in alignment with our values and thus, we do not teach ABA principles in our courses, hence why we do not openly advertise this qualification.

You will get the most out of the course if you can find approximately 2-3 hours per week.

The content is delivered as daily bite-sized lessons Monday through Friday,  and weekly videos, all of which can be consumed at your convenience and pace.

You do not have to be online at any particular times to view, read or listen.

The daily lessons take on average, around 15 minutes per day and can be listened to or read.

The weekly videos take about an hour on average (some a little more and some a little less) and are the core of the program.  If you are too time poor, just find the time to watch the weekly video and catch the daily lessons when you can.

We deliberately do NOT give you daily lessons on Saturdays and Sundays to allow weekends as an opportunity to catch up if any lessons were missed during the week, and to give you some space to digest the week's content.

It's also an opportunity to use this time to watch the weekly video too. 

The only times that are set are when we have our 4 x live group webinars that are run as an optional Q&A session you can attend if you want to have a real time conversation with Jackie.  They are held fortnightly, generally starting at 8.30pm AEDST.

If you cannot attend them, support from Jackie can also be given through the closed Facebook group specifically for participants of this round of the program only and via email if you don't wish to post in the group.

There are three criteria a plan needs to meet for you to be able to use your NDIS funds for this course.

1. You need to be plan managed or self-managed (unfortunately, we cannot use NDIA managed plans).
   
   
2. You need to have available funding in your Capacity Building - Improved Daily Living.
   
   
3. Your plan must include goals for your child that are similar to emotional regulation or mental health improvement.

The line item we use under Capacity Building is #15_038_0117_1_3 - Parent & Carer Training. 

Some LAC's and plan managers will tell you that they cannot pay for this course until the date of commencement, as the NDIS does not pay for future dated programs. 

Although our 9 week Program itself has a start date, as part of this program all participants get immediate access to our full suite of 15 programs and online support and webinars once payment is made through our gold program.

We know that at times, anything to do with the NDIS is complicated, but surprisingly our process is easy!

All you have to do is click on the button below to fill in the NDIS Invoice Request form, and we will take care of the rest. 

Here's the full process of what happens next...

No. Not at all.  Many people sign up to the program in the final days, and even the first few days after the program begins, and that's completely fine. 

Whenever we are close to the starting date of the course and it is unlikely that we will receive payment before we commence, here's what we do:

• If Plan managed - we simply call your plan manager and get confirmation that your invoice is being processed and that verification is enough for us to see that payment is pending and we are happy to set you up on the program right away.  We don't need to wait for funds to finalise before you can get started.
  
  
• If Self-managed - Once you submit your invoice to the NDIS portal, just take a screen shot of the receipt you get after you submit the invoice, and we will take that as verification that payment is pending and set you up on the system.  If for some reason the NDIS declines your payment and we cannot help you to troubleshoot, we simply withdraw you from the program.  You would NOT be obligated to fund the program yourself. 

You see, it's super simple.  Now all you need to do is click on the button below to fill in the NDIS Invoice Request Form and we'll be able to get the ball rolling for you.

This program is designed as an 'in between session' support service. 

With the increase of wait times for psychological support and the uncertainties of COVID-19 lockdowns, never before have we more needed an online solution to help parents manage stressful situations. 

While face-to-face psychological support will always be superior to online support, the reality is that you see your psychologist once a week, fortnight or month and then have to wait until your next session before you can troubleshoot a problem. 

Because this program provides lifetime access online support from a qualified counsellor 7 days a week, you can be reaching out for help whenever you need it, and from the comfort of your own home. 

In addition, you are getting this support for life, meaning you can access it through any of the stages of your child's life, using the support service as well as the 15 programs that will be available to you, to help you to navigate through the different ages and stages of your child's development. 

When you have your initial plan/review meeting with the NDIS, you will be setting some key goals for your child to meet.  NDIS funding is designed to support the achievement of these goals.

If you want to get this program fee included in your child's NDIS plan, you need to demonstrate to them how this program, along with the suite of programs (15 of them) you get as part of this fee, is going to help you to learn the skills necessary to ACHIEVE YOUR CHILDS' GOALS (this is important to the NDIS), then it will likely be funded.

Setting and meeting your child's goals are what's going to be the focus point from the NDIS perspective, so the more you can convince them that our programs are going to help you to obtain the skills to meet those goals, the better stead you'll be to get funded.

Often 'emotional regulation' is a goal that usually aligns with a program like this as I'm teaching you skills that can assist your child to regulate their emotions and by regulating your emotions, you're going to be able to regulate your child's more easily too.

FYI, your LAC (local area coordinator) may not remember to tell you this, but any specific request for funding that you make has to be submitted, so it would pay to specifically ask for this course fee to be funded somewhere in the program.

Typically, it will come under the 'Parent & Carer Training' section which is the best place to receive it.  The other place is the Capacity Building - Improved Daily Living section, however if you can get the P& C Training section with funding, then the CB section can be left for direct support for your child.

Here is a link to an itemised costing report that breaks down the program and has a course overview that aligns with the emotional regulation goals I just spoke about, and also contains key line items from the current NDIS price guide where I've highlighted on page 108 and 104, the two, line items that are most popularly if you do end up using your Capacity Building section.  You can download this document and take it to your LAC so they can submit your request to have this course included in your plan.

If you have the funding available under your core support budget, these line items won't apply.

Typically page 108 is where we do the most invoicing, under Line item # 15_038_0117_1_3 because most people don't know to ask for specific parent and carer training in their core budget.

Also, some LACs and plan managers may try to tell you that this program is not NDIS registered and therefore cannot be accessed.  However, this only applies to NDIA managed plans.

If you are self-managed or plan managed, or you have partial plan or self-managed sections of the plan that have access to capacity building – improved daily living and adequate amounts available, and the program aligns with the child’s goals, this program can be eligible for funding.