Young Vibes/Satsie Thomas. New company set up by the same people as Your Child Freedom Formula and Peaky Parents

[Hols12345]

Hello, if you're looking for information on youngvibes.co.uk child anxiety program, they are the same people as YCFF and Peaky Parents. They've set up under a new name.

See previous thread for discussion:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/child_adolescent_mental_health/4352676-Peaky-Parents-Kactus-Kids-formerly-known-as-Your-Child-Freedom-Programme-YCFF-and-other-previous-names-Child-anxiety-programme

Hi NickyRus, I don't see vicious comments from any of the regular contributors to these threads who have been worried about this company.

Personally I don't doubt that Young Vibes helps some families, but I am concerned about their business practices especially as their customers are vulnerable families and children. It's more than just slightly ropey marketing. If anyone is interested in that, they can read my previous posts on these threads (Hols 12345, Mibb and Mibb2 are all me).

@3xteens thanks, what a shame it’s not worked so well for you. It’s not perfect, I did say in my original post that you have to take some of it with a pinch of salt. It’s a relatively small business but they are passionate about what they do and it seems to work for lots of families. We’ve seen umpteen specialists with qualifications coming out of their ears, with no benefit at all. We’re getting real practical help here, grounded in extensive experience and a real connection with the kids. As I said, Sam is the first person in 7 years who’s been able to get through to my step-son, so she gets my vote. I hope things work out for you xx

@Hols12345 sorry, I can only give you my experience

@3xteens just for the record, I don't agree that you should have known to take some of it with a pinch of salt, after paying a huge amount and putting your trust in this company.

Thank you @NickyRus you are I think the first user of Young Vibes to even properly attempt to explain how they work. (In the past a number of people have come on to say it's all far too complicated to explain and then spend ages telling us why they don't have time to say anything. Your response was refreshing.)

For what it's worth I agree with @Hols12345 that I can absolutely see how they can help some families. I have said before that if they marketed themselves as a strong support network they would have more credibility. Also their fees seem to be far reduced from the astronomical no-return sums they were charging before, and they have dropped some of their more outrageous claims.

Depending on the causes of the young child's stress and anxiety I can see that non qualified help such as theirs might well be sufficient.

However their response to any negative reviews (full on attacking mode) makes be concerned as to their professionalism. I don't see why they can't graciously acknowledge that their method in fact doesn't work for everyone.

Hi All, my situation is that we’ve been with Young Vibes now for 4 months. I say this to make clear where I’m standing, but this post is not directly about the experience in the program.
I’m writing here to make a point that I think is quite important in the debate about whether parents should trust the company or not: professional expert qualifications.
The vast majority of parents in the program have already been to the qualified experts. We’ve been doing that for years ourselves. For the specific condition our daughter suffers from, the best scientifically proven therapies have a success rate of 80%. The remaining 20% has a range of outcomes, with death being a fairly common one.
In the generally poor experience we’ve had with CAMHS, the one thing I’m now grateful for is them admitting that their approach was not working. When they essentially dumped us I felt betrayed, but now I actually see this as a blessing. They recognised we were in that 20% and that they could not help us further.
I saw absolutely no point in trying to find another qualified professional to do more of the same. The CAMHS team we were with have a fully qualified multi-disciplinary team and they fail to save from likely death one child every five, at least for my daughter’s condition.
So when we think about Young Vibes, we must remember that the majority of the cases they deal with are the toughest nuts to crack, which have already been proven uncrackable by the best conventional therapies.
So I’m asking what would be the problem if Young Vibes were not experts in these therapies? I just cannot understand what this argument is about really. The only existing qualifications which can help are about safeguarding, and the whole team has these.
It turns out that the Young Vibes leadership has a pretty good grasp of the range of therapies normally employed for anxiety and related conditions, which helps mostly in approaching children who have been entrenched in their condition by these very therapies. But this is really the main use of such knowledge.
It is absolutely right to question Young Vibes and a parent’s trust must be hard earned. I did a lot of research before joining the program. I saw the posts on Mumsnet, I read the transcript of the appalling BBC Radio program. As a professional skeptic I saw some possible signs of a con or scam (their marketing was so bad!), but any lack of qualifications would have never been a problem for me.
There is a lot that can be improved in Young Vibes (nobody is perfect!) but professional qualifications are not in that list. Not until their approach can be finally proven in scientific trials and then become a qualification in itself.
Hope this helps seeing the wood from the trees. I’d be happy to tell more of the approach if you are interested.

Thank you @DadTryingToHelp . I think that if they don't have professional qualifications and are clear on it that isn't so bad. I still don't think it is very clear. But honestly if you had seen their advertising / marketing 18 months- 2 years ago and the claims they were making then you wouldn't be so calm about everything.

Claiming 100% success guaranteed, anyone who 'fails' it's because the parents weren't committed, high pressure sales, astronomical amounts of money upfront, 'discounts' for people who then became mentors.

They over reached.

Now their fees are more sensible, and on an ongoing basis it doesn't seem so bad. They probably also need to recognise that maybe their methods won't work for everyone. That would actually make them more credible (rather than attacking on trust pilot reviews).

It's still a bit too much smoke and mirrors for me.

If you've been on the programme for 4 months, what improvements have you seen?

(I also wish we could get some parents in from say 18 months ago to say whether improvements have been sustained.)

@DadTryingToHelp thanks for your contribution. I'm glad to hear you read all these threads and listened to the BBC program so you were able to make an informed decision. I think that shows that the discussions on these threads are not "blocking families from accessing help" as Sam and Martin Robins like to claim. I hope all potential customers will do the same.

Further to previous post:

Thanks -hols. I think the thing with her is that she’s so dishonest! And manipulative. I just couldn’t on any way let my child go to someone who had such a lack of professional integrity.

But who also tries to paint herself as the victim. She has made the situation so much worse in the way she’s responded to it. If she’d come on here in the first place, it might have all been sorted out rather than ending up like this. In the beginning I was more open minded about the whole thing, although still sceptical about her credentials and business model. Now, however, I think she’s just a liar.

Exactly. I was neutral about them when the first thread started. I was interested to follow due to my DD's anxiety issues. I feel they have learned from our threads how to market and price themselves more credibly and plug some obvious gaping holes around safeguarding, but the fact I know how they were taints them for me.

It's such a shame really, as a self help mentoring group for families could be excellent. I was lost when this started with DD, and having access to people saying 'try this ..., respond like this ....' could have been really beneficial.

But the over reach from Sam, and how she responds on Trust Pilot etc makes me think I wouldn't trust her with my precious DD under any circumstances.

Yeah, exactly. It was her responses to the whole situation of us asking questions. Not even hard questions, just normal ones you’d ask any professional. My daughter has a lot of medical treatment. Including surgery. I always ask questions. What are your skills, why is this the best option, who else can I speak to etc. I get second opinions, I ask other people, I question things. If one of those medical professionals then started acting the way Sam did, I wouldn’t let them touch her.

No doubt off the back of this Sam will start changing Young Vibes again. Because at every step of the way she’s changed her way of working or presenting herself in response to mumsnet. Which also shows that she didn’t have a clue what she was doing.

But I think there’s enough evidence out there now for people to make up their own minds.

@TeenDivided briefly, and in response to your comment above, just sharing this as info for any parents looking for local support.

There are self help and peer support groups all over the country. Things like parent-led cbt (anxiety), space programme (anxiety and ocd), New Maudsley method (eating disorders). I’m always happy to signpost. PLACE network under Charlie Waller Trust is where we all network with other groups across the UK. 😍And this is the thing. It is already being done and by organisations who are commissioned by ICB’s/CCG’s who (naturally) require us to be correctly insured and have appropriate policies in place. Parents shouldn’t be paying for this kind of support, it should be commissioned and free at the point of need. Find your local group

@Perfectstorm72 unfortunately this is one key problem I was trying to address in my previous post. When my wife saw your post, her reaction was not very polite, because of the suffering we have gone through following exactly your very kind advice. It was not anyone's fault and everyone did their best with the best intentions, it just really did not work for us. It would be brilliant if there was more awareness about the few like us, left behind by the mainstream practices and thinking.

The response and support to anxiety is way too poor both in terms of capacity and methodologies. Our local support was overwhelmed and once finally engaged, awfully ineffective.
The New Maudsley method, cbt and parent-led cbt have failed miserably in our case. I cannot fault the local team, I think they are very good carpenters trying to repair seams using a hammer.

So yeah here we have that unusual situation where there is a new approach, not scientifically proven, that is apparently more effective than the established methodologies. At least in cases where these have failed (the statistics are small and biased, so I would not generalise too much!).
It's a kind of Lorenzo's Oil situation, with Young Vibes trying to find a way to sustain economically a little revolution in the treatment of anxiety.
Their approach is expensive to offer (lots of face to face contact) and there is no taxpayer money involved so yes not ideal.

I'm sometimes wondering what I would do if I was Sam. Making zero mistakes is never an option so probably I would make the same mistakes or worse.
I think I would have given up ages ago. But then, thinking about these children, terrified each and every day, with all sorts of problems and unthinkable outcomes... how can you not try to find a way to go ahead? Despite some truly awful reactions. I don't know, maybe pairing with a university could be an option but I see it as a very, very long shot.

Maybe we can transform this thread into a positive one. I'm sure even the most bitter critics must have some suggestions. What would you do if you were Young Vibes? I believe that positive change is always a good thing so what positive changes can we suggest?

Can you tell us more about the advice she gives?

@DadTryingToHelp Of course there is never a one size fits all resource/therapy/practice which will suit or work for every child/young person. From earlier comments the low demand, psycho education is very simple and is very well known and used by families. Many organisations and support groups offer this step by step guidance process and don’t charge families for sharing this knowledge. Commissioning exists so the burden isn’t placed on already vulnerable and terrified families to foot the bill. Whilst I run such an organisation and have done so for many years, I am also a parent with lived experience of children’s mental health therefore we always place families at the centre and work hard to secure funding for our work. Of course it’s each families decision whether to pay for a service if they feel it is of benefit (of course) but some are desperate, unable to fund and are not aware of alternatives. I know of several personally. Hence my post.

I think really, it should be up to Sam and Martin to decide what they want to with their business. If they are so certain that it works (100% guaranteed!) then they don’t need advice from us off mn. She’s been quite rude about us so I’m not that inclined to give her even more tips about how to seem legitimate.

Agree @BrilliantGreenFlamingo. Posters on these threads have already inadvertently provided a lot of pointers and acted as a free focus group.

There have also been many constructive, positive posts about things that have worked for us (most of whom have experience of being the parent of a child with anxiety). There has also been signposting to organisations such as the ones that @Perfectstorm72 mentions in a previous post.

Most of the negativity, emotionally manipulative and threatening language has come from those involved with YV.

*@DadTryingToHelp mentions "unthinkable outcomes..." . Previous posters have done the same. See previous threads on this subject (linked at the start of this thread)

Just to let everyone know they have changed names a number of times. Young vibes is now trying Satsie Thomas and other variants. I left their company as I got so concerned and disgruntled at continually being put down. I put my trust in them that the parents I spoke to would have the best experience possible but I now realise that they cut corners everywhere, do not have a proper client support system and were asking us to do whatever we could to get new families to enrol. That was enough for me- I left being owed thousands of back pay that they have stated I will not be paid for. And I'm not alone- at least 3 others have also left once we found out what was going on.
I just felt it was my duty to forewarn anyone thing about putting your trust in them. I feel guilty and ashamed that I was hoodwinked and that meant I encouraged families to join believing everything was great.

@staffinsider You may not wish to comment further, but as a matter of interest, did you see families benefitting?

Sam Robbins has had the front to give Satsie Thomas a 5 star review on trust pilot!

@staffinsider I’m sorry you found yourself caught up in all of this. Thank you for sharing your insight with us. Out of interest what level of professionals are they recruiting to recite their methods? They advertise that they have psychologists and similarly qualified therapists but I’d be glad interested to know.

@staffinsider don't feel guilty or ashamed. The pressure to trust and believe them when you are involved in the programme is immense. It is not that you believed in a process that doesn't help at times, it is that you thought you could help other families but we're drawn into a business run by a person who seems very on the edge herself to me. Who is egotistical and has no shame in being nasty and belittling others.

I just spoke to my child in a certain way that took her right back to being involved in the programme. Her words literally 5 minutes ago were "you just spoke like they made you speak to me when we did that programme". I feel ashamed at how quick we were taken in, how much we paid them and how much it effected me and my child at the point we walked away.

And following that, what "life long support" did we get? Well they didn't care enough to even contact us and see how things were.

Is this their book, Anxious to Awsome by Satsie Thomas?