your child freedom formula - has anyone tried it?

[lu9months]

ive seen adverts for this on fb. they claim to be able to cure anxiety in young people. im suspicious - and nowhere does it tell you the cost. however im fairly desperate since my 16 year old is very disabled by anxiety. thanks

Thanks folks for safeguarding our vulnerable kids with your investigations...I have loved the thread. On the 60min call did they tell you they can signpost you to a lender to borrow the £5500. Some cushy business going on...will wait and see how far they go time will tell. Changing names doesn't make any difference..They will need a strong rebranding to change the damaged 'image'

@MummyKat2 - thank you so much; a few of us discovered this earlier and linked to it up thread. I’ll keep my eye on this page daily as I have been their other sites/pages

@GullibleTwo

It's very easy to tell who is who on this thread. It's sad that such a platform of genuine people can be infiltrated by scrupulous people who want to profit on innocent children. Reading and listening to the number of kids with anxiety, ADHD, OCD etc, one wonders what's going on? It's almost like we have a pandemic with parents struggling, schools failing, CAMHs overwhelmed and no meaningful solutions, LA SEN struggling to keep up or find suitable school provision. Home education is not a solution for all parents either. Can I just ask what else parents can do or are doing apart from therapy ofcourse which has been the focus here.

I think the covid pandemic probably tipped many who were just about OK over the edge. And then added a whole load more who had been perfectly fine.

From my side

• CAMHS has been significantly under-resourced and over stretched for years. I get the feeling that in may areas you have to be seriously self-harming or actively planning suicide to get help. and in the meantime they just get worse.
• Schools are also stretched for budgets will will have resulted in reduction of pastoral staff. Similarly meaning less ability to spot and support students who are starting to struggle.
• SEN support in schools seems patchy. It seems too often to need aware parents to push for things to be investigated. Fine for parents confident to do this, but less fine for others.
• I don't think the modern GCSEs are helping either. No one 'needs' a 9, so putting them in just adds unnecessary pressure to high achievers. The less academic pupils have less access to more practical courses: the amount of theory in DD's 'Food prep & Nutrition' was quite large. For my DD just the sheer weight of a standard load of GCSEs was too much.
• And then you need to add on social media, porn culture etc too

This is the root of it - taken from Mibb's Wealthy by Default, High Ticket Coaching Academy link, and dated April 27th 2021:

We took the leap in March 2020. Our sign company went under and my gut feeling that this felt right for us, as I type this today, April 2021 a year later we turned over 100k last month. If you have the drive then this is the vehicle. I still wonder if I will wake and it’s been a dream! They are genuine and if you want it they will make it happen. Sam Robins

Double thank you for adding this; I missed this part of that page a few times and then when I saw it, it made me shudder! Everything fell into place and confirmed all the PMd information I’d been provided by other amazing convened parents who were observing this thread.

Truly shocking to piece together the journey The lack of knowledge and experience and the deceitful posts (from the linkedin fabrications, to Facebook claims) is truly staggering.

**concerned (not ‘convened’) - sorry, posted in haste

Wow double. I didn’t see that. So even if she turned over £100k in a month, how would that work time wise? With supporting 20 families? It wouldn’t be possible.

Oh, maybe she means £100k in a year. Her accounts don’t appear to reflect that.

youngminds.org.uk/about-us/reports/coronavirus-impact-on-young-people-with-mental-health-needs/ Here’s a survey done on young people’s mental health.

@SwanShaped

Wow double. I didn’t see that. So even if she turned over £100k in a month, how would that work time wise? With supporting 20 families? It wouldn’t be possible.

It would work on this model though @SwanShaped as they have (presumably cheap) mentors doing one to ones and almost everything else is group work. Zoom means people can come in from anywhere. And not everyone has to do ever session, am I right?

One coach could easily knock out three one to one 'registration calls' then three zooms per day. I imagine at least one of the zooms would be the coach topping and tailing then letting parents check in with each other.

Again, this is a model I've seen with adult coaches, some of whom have teams of associate coaches (rather than teen mentors). Again, I have no issues with this model for consenting adults - group work is a good tool if used properly. And with parents groups I've attended (my DS has ASD) the peer-parental support has been equally if not more valuable than the Iearning.

But I keep coming back to the central point that these coaches are treating mental health issues and are therefore automatically acting unethically.

On GCSES your right 5 or 6 is enough subjects. Kids dont need more than that. In Singapore most schools do only 5 subjects for IGCSEs. Yet they rank top in education. We also need more vocational subjects and sports in state schools. Not all kids want to go to Uni or have the academic ability, and its not to say they are not good at other things. British education is too narrow. They should copy German and Swiss models of normalising apprenticeships and bring back the polytechnics. Education is very stressful and most kids come out with no financial or life skills.

So the model is, you get lots of people to sign up, and then volunteer mentors to do all the work? I agree that mentors can be a very useful tool but I also have big safeguarding concerns. Particularly around a business that grew so quickly. I’m not sure how there would be time to review processes, have supervisions, carry out safeguarding training, DBSs, recruit mentors, check references etc. Any kind of legit charity or company that did this, would not be able to grow this quickly and maintain integrity. And would also not be bragging about how much money they’d made. The thing that struck me about highticket, was all the output measurements were about money. Not about how many people had benefitted.

@SwanShaped

So the model is, you get lots of people to sign up, and then volunteer mentors to do all the work? I agree that mentors can be a very useful tool but I also have big safeguarding concerns. Particularly around a business that grew so quickly. I’m not sure how there would be time to review processes, have supervisions, carry out safeguarding training, DBSs, recruit mentors, check references etc. Any kind of legit charity or company that did this, would not be able to grow this quickly and maintain integrity. And would also not be bragging about how much money they’d made. The thing that struck me about highticket, was all the output measurements were about money. Not about how many people had benefitted.

I think that's the model in play here. The bigger, more successful business coaches will have teams of people working for them to take particular sessions, obviously that would be a paid post. I don't know how much this company pays its young mentors.

One of the big things that has happened in coaching over the pandemic is the move to remote, it used to be almost exclusively one to one/face to face. Group sessions would really only be used in a business context, for eg if you work for a big bank you might have a management scheme with group coaching. The pandemic has blurred this so zoom coaching and group coaching has become much more common. Obviously that's great for coaches who can reach more people without travel. So I can very clearly see how that trend has been applied in this particular business.

Really, the more I post the clearer this is to me: this is a coaching business that is using very effective sales techniques learned from one of the very many 'high performing coach' coaches. I have no issue with that model in of itself, but it is not appropriate to apply it to young people with mental health issues. That's why they're so insistent anxiety isn't a mental health issue...

I remind all posters that you do not need any qualifications, or training, to call yourself a coach.

At the core, there may be some very good people with a useful method that would genuinely help some young people.

The issue for me - as I would think also for most of us here - is the marketing & operational methods and the fees.

That’s the main issue for me. They are claiming to cure vulnerable young people. I still haven’t seen any evidence of a safeguarding policy or any other related policies that would go with a company that works with young people. And I absolutely understand how parents could be drawn into the hope that they sell.

There have also been many inconsistencies. Sam said she has done this for 10 years but there are only new posters supporting her. She also says elsewhere that it’s only been a year. Some of the new posters have been the same person posting under different names. I don’t see any evidence of any qualifications that I would deem suitable for the level of responsibility you have when working with young people. In fact, I’ve not really seen any evidence of much at all. Apart from it being hard to explain, you get zoom sessions and a mentor. It is all so shady and vague, that even if it were legit, I wouldn’t go near it.

@SwanShaped That's a sad read from YoungMinds - great market research for some To you, and all parents here who may be going through highly emotional challenges with their children, but find the strength to be curious and tenacious enough to check things out and do some due diligence

I'm all too aware that there will be parents who may have been sucked into this, however, & I hope they achieve what they need to through YCFF, I truly do.

Just a sad reflection of the world we are trying to live in, to our best ability. I hope the ongoing research might lead to at least a tightening up of the legal framework that allows such activities to prosper. @GoodButNaughty I wonder if any local MPs would take this up? Love, dtq x

I completely agree - I'm just trying to be very balanced. This is shady AF.

You know, if I thought I had a cure for anxiety I'd write a book and sell it for £20. I'd still make an absolute fortune, but I could help so many more people...

The other thing it comes down to for me, is that someone is claiming to have just come up with the answer to anxiety. Like it’s that easy and all of the amazing researchers and parents out there haven’t figured it out. It’s absurd and very arrogant. Not only that, but they’re claiming to cure anxiety using untrained mentors, which makes even less sense. If I could cure anxiety, I’d write a book and then that’d be it. Everyone would know the answer and then there would be no more anxiety. I actually don’t have a teenager with anxiety, my kids are younger. But I do have a very strong interest in safeguarding.

Holdon Thanks so much for your contribution to this thread, it's really interesting and you've explained it really well. I'm also horrified that anyone could consider using this model to make money out of vulnerable families.

I can't find their new page on Facebook. Does anyone have a link to that?

I wonder what has happened with those families already enrolled on the program.

Good if you have any updates I'd be really interested

The pro YCFF posters seem to have gone quiet too.

I bet poor lu9months never thought her innocent question was going to turn into this mega thread. lu if you are reading this at all I hope you are OK.

I’ve been thinking about OP too, teen.

I think that the pro YCFF crew have realised that they’re not helping. It’s clear that Sam has been reading this thread. Would have been useful for her to come on and try to explain. Thanks to all who have contributed in various ways.

What’s also clear from this thread, is that a lot of parents are struggling and there just isn’t the support out there.

Wow that last comment on the HTCA review page is so sad:

"My husband and I have been on the program now for 7 months and still no sales. Lucy and her team are genuine, hard working, wonderful people who I believe genuinely want to help people. We have also changed our business idea multiple times as coaching is a new venture for us. We made that explicitly clear in our sign up call and got the impression that that wouldn’t be an issue but it certainly has drawn out the process further. The HTCA team have allowed us to stay on the program ... but we have not got our business off the ground, owe family £10,000 (£9000 for the program and £1000 from an in program purchase that I can’t really see how you would get around – that was a bit annoying) and we are back living at my husbands parents place so we can afford ads (when they work)."

So they've flushed £10k of family money down the toilet and HTCA took their cash even though they clearly don't have any skills or even a decent business idea. Utter charlatans.

That really is sad.