Your Child Freedom Formula - scam

[Twoandtwois6]

I saw the old thread was not 'Active' but please take a look before you proceed. I have had a terrible experience with this company, they are not medically trained and al their sales and mentor staff are ex-customers, like a pyramid or Ponzi scheme. The therapeutic content is just a bit of science about adrenalin and that’s it... that all they’ve got. I got some of my money back through my credit card and now they are taking me to court because they want it back, and have double the amount because of my reviews, to silence me.

IF YOU HAVE HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE PLEASE GET IN TOUCH, I am alone trying to prove they are bad news. If you've been through their emotional blackmail sales experience or their programme pls let me know THANK YOU x

I shall repost the questions I still haven't had answered despite numerous requests on various of these threads:

So my question to you (as a parent of an anxious child myself) is what kind of advice are they giving to you as a parent or to your child? How are they telling you to react? What steps are they suggesting you try? etc.

Maybe @D0rsetDad or @scowe would like to have a go?

Please, in any answers, less emotive language, less mudslinging, more tangible information.

I’m on the road today, away with work, depending on what time I get back this evening I will try to answer your questions in a bit more detail 😊 you can visit the portal for free and view a lot of content which you can do in the meantime though 😊

Her program is completely transparent. Most of the theory material is now freely accessible on her site.

You’ve prompted me to go and have a look at the PP website - I hadn’t visited this version under the PP name. I see some things have changed and there’s more attempt at transparency around the sign-up process and what you get - (although I’ve got to say I do find it super sexist and off putting that the sessions for ‘Mums’ are at 11 and 1pm and ‘Dads’ at 7pm. Good old ‘Mums’, with their lack of full time jobs and ability to just fit in supporting their child during the working day). I didn’t see any ‘theory material’ but maybe I didn’t look hard enough - do link?

This though, from the FAQs:

We are all qualified and we are all experts in this one and only field, coaching parents and children out of CHILDHOOD ANXIETY DISORDERS and if you, after watching the videos and reading the reviews, are still sceptical and want to continue down the wrong road, then we can do no more, other than to say - if you need us then you know where we are.

But… qualified in what? What qualifications do any of them have? And the weird tone of “if you’re sceptical you’re on the wrong path” - it’s not how a credible operation speaks to potential clients.

I think you are approaching the system all wrong. did you have any idea of what yhe traditional routes involved before you signed up with camhs/private therapy because I xan tell you I didn't and I can't find anywhere online that tells you exactly how they will help you before you attend. I also.dont know how slimming world does their work or what qualifications their mentors have. I don't know what method my daughters teacher uses to explain trigonometry before she steps into that class. Richard Madeley has no qualifications and yet he's paid to write an agony uncle column in yhe telegraph every week advising people on their problems. Go figure. Clarity of method is hard to give because it is individually tailored to each family. It's starts with parental education and coaching and then the child meets their mentor at least 3x a week to learn in an 3ducation phase. They remove the triggers from the child's life (we cut out a grandparent who was a massive trigger for over 8 weeks, painful but n3cessary). Once the child's adrenaline levels have been brought down sufficiently they move on to a section based similarly yo CBT where they perform challenges and begin to open out their comfort zones understanding what they are experiencing as they go through with the most supportive hand holding mentors ever. They are never signed off until they are ready and indeed have access to the programme for life should they ever need a top up or reminder. As has been said several times, the drops ins are an essential tool and you can use them to learn from other people's stories and also to ask specific questions like "how should I react in this situation" etc. Think AA as a sort of model. Yes there is no regulation for peer mentoring but that isn't the fault of the programme it's the fault of regulators. I'm sure if there was a regulatory body Sam would be the first proud applicant to that. I understand that you want letters after a name but I've had no luck with several people with all sorts of qualifications including psychotherapists and GPS. The staff are highly trained, some have psychology qualifications, some have worked at front line services with yhe NHS dealing with MH issues and some have been teachers and school workers so it places them very well yo understand the dynamics of those institutions and how yo work best with yhem,especially valuable if your child is anxious with school. Your comment about a bunch of mums online not being powerful enough yo affect a business is completely wrong. Either you've had your head in the sand over the last 20 years or very blinkered. The jnternet is a.powerful thing, your threads have already been picked up by BBC radio 4 for a biased and unresearxhed programme which has aired nationwide. How damaging can that be? ENORMOUSLY. Sadly the BBC has a reputation for being fair and impartial however they never even contacted the company for comment - how is that impartial? Your other comment about it not being a smear campaign is also completely untrue. The thread is titled SCAM and as a qualified solicitor let me tell you that is a smear campaign at best let alone pursuable in the courts for libel and slander. I apologise if my comment about saving my daughters life was upsetting. It was meant in the context of saving her from her life being destroyed by yhe disorder not suicide. Apologies for any upset.

@Jodiebd3b - I dont understand your comment about the Radio programme not contacting the organisation for comment:

Sadly the BBC has a reputation for being fair and impartial however they never even contacted the company for comment - how is that impartial?

Sam and Martin were interviewed and are included in the programme; sadly (my opinion) they come across very poorly.

Have you listened to the programme??

Sam is forthright and will tell you how it is. This is not a course for the faint hearted or those who are sceptical. It won't work unless you put the effort in. Unfortunately many people aren't willing yo do that and want a quick fix but that's not not reality. She does also say, 'we are here when you are ready and that's the point to fixate on. There is a mums session at 6pm and all the sessions are based around times researched to fit the participants best. Mums do make more time in their day to drop in while dad's do unfortunately tend to get a bit bogged in work. It's just a fact of life not a aexist remark. Hiwever everyone has a lunch hour so there's no real excuse. The 121 service is always available too if you can't make a session and there are open sessions for anyone during the day. Many couples come on together. The staff are all trained and qualified in anxiety recovery. They have qualifications in all sorts of different areas too, some were front line NHS staff working with MH spheres, some are ex teachers. These other qualifications are equally helpful too. When i was a solicitor, my secretary had no qualifications but she was amazing at her job. When traditional routes have failed why not try something a little less orthodox. What is spirituality is not a belief in something other than the norm.

My daughter is being given specific “exercises” to do each week. Things she wouldn’t normally go anywhere near. She’s talked through coping mechanisms by her mentor for when her anxiety rises in those situations. She has done fantastically well I just 2 weeks. She’s out ordering food in restaurants, going to shopping centres. And no self harm in over 2 weeks.
There is no specific list of “things” each approach is tailored to the individual who is suffering. Everyone’s reasons and manifestations of anxiety are different.
We’ve also been down the CAHMS route - waste of time. Talking therapy that just drudges up the past. Relives all the triggers and guess what? Triggers them again!!
Now it’s a 12 month waiting list for a daughter who recently claimed she wanted to take her own life and ended up in A&E having cut herself so badly. Big up the traditional route eh!?
The actions people are asked to take are specific and measurable and certainly in terms of my family’s experience are working.

I stumbled on this thread last night and have been listening to the BBC documentary whilst driving today.

It really does seem to have all the hallmarks of a cult.

• self-claimed 100% success rate
• a belief system that excludes all other approaches
• if it doesn’t work it’s because you didn’t believe hard enough or put enough in (sounds very MLM)
• manipulative and unethical hard sale (the recorded sales call on the BBC documentary was shocking, in my opinion anyone recruited using that script should be entitled to a refund)
• a messianic leader

Their response to a negative review on TrustPilot was to disclose the reviewer’s name, disclose details about the reviewer’s own mental health and to heavily imply the reviewer’s ‘anxiety fuelled behaviours’ were making them ‘aggressive and volatile’.

Many of the positive reviews (all of which appear to have been written between 17 May 2021 and 4 June 2021) are fanatical and oddly at pains to stress how it is definitely not a scam.

It reminds me of a mail-order course an old boyfriend paid £1,000+ for back in the early 2000s. Something about resetting the amygdala to combat anxiety. A good concept and a series of interesting observations, but in no way the complete life-changing recovery system it had sold itself as.

I have had no direct contact with the company so can’t say if their system works or not. However, it certainly seems to be operating in a highly unprofessional and unethical way.

I started out knowing nothing about YCFF/PP/whatever Tribe. I would have been delighted to find there was something reputable out there.

However I am not going to put my trust in an organisation:

• that claimed 100% success (that's just not credible imo)
• that asked for £5000 up front
• that had no visibility on credentials
• that had no visibility on methods

They have rolled back on some of these claims since and improved visibility, but that, and the high pressure sales techniques means I personally wouldn't feel happy using them.

Way way back on thread 1, I happily posted specifics about what was helping my child, something YCFF parents seem unable to do.

If the formula can be given away in 10 or even 50 lines of text by a parent saying some specifics that have helped, then it isn't worth £5000. But equally if parents are continually unable to give any idea of the advice (apart from 'it is a physical issue not a mental one' and 'we have to change how we parent') then I have to think maybe it's a bit smoke and mirrors.

This seems to me like a potentially good self help guided assistance, that has got too greedy and used high pressure sales to capture desperate parents.

If you are so desperate for your answers go and look for yourself instead of piping up with the same response every 5 minutes.

I'm actually not desperate. But for people who say the company is so fantastic to consistently be unable/unwilling to say anything about the advice/treatment/guidance/whatever isn't a good look.

People would be much more credible if they could give other readers something tangible instead of chunks of non paragraphed emotion. So if you are trying to advocate for YCFF my advice would be to be less emotive and more factual.

We joined YCFF in May this year. My son who is 13 has had anxiety for years and we have paid for Counselling and we have been to CAMHS. This didn't work. He was so bad crying going to school everyday and having panic attacks and when in school spending a lot of his time in pastoral care. He said he didn't want to live anymore feeling this way. I took him out of school. A few days later he was on the recovery programme. In total he has had over 40 sessions with his Mentor over a three month period. I too had to go to the daily drop in sessions. These were vital as I had to learn new ways of behaviour myself and going through this process as hard as it was you have support and guidance to get yourself recovered. The portals you are asked to watch are amazing. I watched them twice to make sure I understood. My son also had portals to watch. The biggest challenge for him was going back to school. I contacted Sam again and asked for another one to one with his Mentor so he had that continued support. He is back at school. He's like a different child. No more nightmares. He sleeps all night. Since being back at school he hasn't been near pastoral care. Doesn't use his class timeout card. He gets out of bed and is happy to get on with his day. I don't know where we would be without Sam and her team. I am eternally grateful for recovering my son from this awful disorder. I don't hesitate to recommend Peaky Parents to people
and I will carry on doing so. I won't be answering any questions people may have on this forum but I will be happy to answer or talk to anyone if you message me privately.

And another.
Less emotive, but still giving no idea how they help.

Can anyone explain the frequent name changes?
Does anyone know what qualifications they have?

Great to hear you have had a good result for your son.

I won't be answering any questions people may have on this forum but I will be happy to answer or talk to anyone if you message me privately.

Can I just ask, what’s behind this decision for you?

@TeenMinusTests

If you are so desperate for your answers go and look for yourself instead of piping up with the same response every 5 minutes.

I'm actually not desperate. But for people who say the company is so fantastic to consistently be unable/unwilling to say anything about the advice/treatment/guidance/whatever isn't a good look.

People would be much more credible if they could give other readers something tangible instead of chunks of non paragraphed emotion. So if you are trying to advocate for YCFF my advice would be to be less emotive and more factual.

Like I said in my post to you before. Go on the portal and see for yourself. In my opinion its working for my family, after 6 years of working with CAMHS my daughter ended up self harming and suicidal, CAMHS dislike not help at all, actually made things a lot worse. PP do not dwell on talking excessively over the past for months/years just to tell the child at the end "there's nothing more we can do" My daughter was cutting her arms/legs every day, and suicidal...in A&E on suicide watch every other week,she is under Social Services & lost all hope of ever feeling better. Until now we have been with PP for about 1 month and can honestly say there is a change in my daughter, not massive but its still early days. Maybe PP is not for you, but I can honestly say we tried CAMHS, Charities, & private Therapy, nothing helped. I

There are recent posts on more than one thread regarding this company. Having read some of the latest posts here the negatives are still trying to discredit anything positive that is said.

Comments like ;
@TeenMinusTests
People would be much more credible if they could give other readers something tangible instead of chunks of non paragraphed emotion. So if you are trying to advocate for YCFF my advice would be to be less emotive and more factual.

... are just belittling. Anxiety is emotive. Recovering from it is emotive. For goodness sake, these negatives are not liking other people having a different opinion!!

My POSITIVE opinions and experiences are on the other link. The comments on here are giving a factual overview of what the company does and how it has worked. Like someone said if you don't understand go and look at the site and watch the videos. If you don't want to understand then don't 🤷🏼‍♀️

[quote GoodButNaughty]@scowe thank goodness you’ve read enough... what a very diligent approach to digesting the evidence contained here...

[/quote]
Another belittling comment ....

Call me a cynic but there's something about the wording used in many of these posts from "parents" that scream to me they've been written by a sales bod. And the excessive use of emojis throughout as if from an a Instagram post are odd.

I'm a busy working Mum and don't have time to post endless dialogue. If you need my help and want to ask me anything about the programme or Peaky Parents I'm happy to do so if you want to message me. Thanks.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Call me a cynic but there's something about the wording used in many of these posts from "parents" that scream to me they've been written by a sales bod. And the excessive use of emojis throughout as if from an a Instagram post are odd.

🤣 "Sales bod" Nope sorry, We are all REAL People with REAL children Struggling to get through one day to the next. So if you dont mind I won't be partaking in your NEGATIVE comments. I am NOT "CRAZY or UNHINGED" Life is too short for spiteful vendictive people trying to pull you down. my only concern is my children being happy. Have a fantastic evening 👍

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Call me a cynic but there's something about the wording used in many of these posts from "parents" that scream to me they've been written by a sales bod. And the excessive use of emojis throughout as if from an a Instagram post are odd.

I'm definitely not a "sales bod" 😅 couldn't be further from the truth. Its good to be a bit skeptical at times but too much of it must be unhealthy.

Anxiety is emotive. Recovering from it is emotive.

I totally agree.

However choosing help for your child, especially help that has high upfront costs should in my personal opinion (and people are welcome to disagree) be done with mainly a clear, logical head.

Otherwise what is to stop unscrupulous people from preying on desperate parents' anxiety?

ps Tink troll hunting isn't permitted on MN.