to warn you about this company offering solutions to child's anxiety and school refusal?

[Hols12345]

They advertise on Facebook as Young Vibes, Your Child Freedom Formula, Peaky Parents, Anxiety, Our Formula, and various other names.

They use a 'high ticket' sales technique, where they offer a webinar and then urge you to book a call. The call is a high-pressure sales call.

They have changed their name quite a few times over the last year, after they were investigated by the Advertising Standards agency - www.asa.org.uk/rulings/tomwill--holdings--ltd-g21-1116080-tomwill--holdings--ltd.html, and they were featured in a BBC radio 4 documentary www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zt9y

There are a few threads on the child mental health boards - here's one. www.mumsnet.com/talk/child_adolescent_mental_health/4239684-your-child-freedom-formula-has-anyone-tried-it?page=1

On the threads there are people from 'both sides', including some who have been through the program, so it's well worth having a read if you are thinking of making the call.

Next questions.

Do you believe Autism exists?
Do you think anxiety in autistic children can be addressed the same ways as other anxiety?

Third question

If a child fails to recover under your programme, is it ever because the programme isn't suitable / just hasn't worked, or always because the parents have failed to try hard enough?

So you have no medical qualifications, either, even though that is what would be appropriate for dealing with a condition based in physiology, rather than psychology.

"I want to help people" is a bit of a naïve teenager answer to the question "why do you want to enter this profession?" isn't it?

4. What qualifications do you have to state that Anxiety is physiological and not psychological?

5. If the qualifications are 'useless' to you, why have you not instead employed people with more relevant qualifications?

6. If someone has anxiety possibly stemming from developmental trauma (e.g. if they were adopted) would you take them on?

Actual psychotherapist here. There are multiple well researched, peer reviewed, studied and proven methods of treating anxiety. What makes your "formula" better than those? Sounds like you're pandering to people who dont want to admit their child has a mental health problem and are more comfortable with a physical problem to me. Beyond reckless. Shame on you.

So

1, Do I believe Autism Exists ? - Yes.
2, Do I think Anxiety in Autistic Children can treated in the same way as other anxiety? - No.

You took our child on knowing they are autistic, asking us if we really think that is the case and saying "good" when we said our child doesn't think they are autistic. You have said autism etc are just part of anxiety before now. Does this mean we were taken into the programme wrongly??

@SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes I’m glad you have decided to answer questions and explain to those who have gone into debt in the hope that your “method” would actually solve their child’s anxiety issues. I run a support group for parent of cyp with MH issues and we have some of those sadly

That's a bit worrying as therapists dealing with issues to do with adoption have to be certified to do so ...

Hi @SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes

If you and your staff do not believe that anxiety is psychological and (therefore, as I understand it) believe that you don't need to have recognised psychotherapeutic qualifications or registration/regulation to do your work, do you not fear that you might inadvertently do harm to young people and their families because you don't fully understand what you are doing?

Developmental trauma, for example, could be made a lot worse by someone intervening in an individual's or family's life, trying to help but not having the skills or experience to do so.

What professional indemnity (insurance) cover do you have to protect you and families you work with from losses which might arise from mistaken or misguided advice from you?

Trigger warning - reference to suicide

@SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes I'm guessing an issue for you is that any registratory body (i.e. someone like the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, or the BCAP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)) might take issue with your business practices, as they have codes of professional and ethical conduct which you would be grossly in breach of.

They would not think it's ok to use the suicide of a young person to scare vulnerable parents into signing up with one of their members.

You routinely use scare tactics in your marketing campaigns on Facebook, targeting families who are already frightened and vulnerable because their children are experiencing a mental health crisis. This is a screenshot from an email your business sent out to families who had expressed an interest in your help. What could possibly make you think this is ok?

@SamanthaRobinsYoungVibes if you believe you have got something truly valuable (and safe) to offer families in crisis then please, quit the scare tactics, get yourself properly accredited and registered, ensure you have proper oversight to protect families (and yourself). Do no harm.

7. On a different thread someone posted the sales script that they had been inadvertently sent by your organisation. How do you justify using a high pressure sales technique to extremely vulnerable parents?

What do you mean when you say anxiety is physiological not psychological?

Isn't it a MH disorder with physiological symptoms? Eg racing heart, sweaty palms, shitting yourself when you push yourself too far (maybe that's just me)

7b) I understand it is difficult to get everything right first time. However using high pressure sales on desperate parents seems so obviously highly unethical that to me it is obvious that it shouldn't be used. Why on earth did you think for 1 second that is was appropriate?

50% of children in the UK today have an Anxiety Disorder + related conditions.

8. Source please?

My questions really was in relation to the autism, if you don't think anxiety in autistic children can be treated in the same way WHY do you take on autistic children? And you did this with the attitude that autism doesn't exist, which you are now saying it does!

Having the programme "for life" will not help us because of this, the experience effected our child negatively because it "cannot be treated in the same way as other anxiety" in an autistic person.

I have always said the programme would work for some, as everything does. But you took us on, and our money, with the full knowledge of our childs diagnosis.