Young Vibes Anxiety Solutions

[Happyclapper18]

I have recently come across Young Vibes organisation who treat anxiety in children and young adults. I am at my wits end how to help my DS 21yrs after trying everything and the NHS completely failing him. I looked at their testimonials and Trust Pilot reviews and was impressed so signed up.
However I have just seen all the awful feedback on here about them. It is mostly related yo the high cost but this has now changed and they offer the vourse at £55 per week.
I'm willing to try but am concerned that their methods may make my son worse. I just don't have anywhere else to turn.

@Happyclapper18

I personally wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. Just from reading the threads.

Yes they have stopped some of their more dubious practices due in no small part to the tenacity of some MN users who got stung by them, but would you really want your DC to get intervention from people who could ever even consider taking advantage of desperate families in the way they have done?

If there is any ASD issues with your DS that would be another reason to steer clear.

My DD has been helped by
. medication
. time
. therapy for underlying issues

We are coming up to 4 years since her collapse (when she was 15), she's not fully recovered but is so so much better than she was.

That said, I'm sure they do work for some kids, but I suspect only the mild ones where the issue is easy to address and there isn't deep seated trauma or neuro diversity.

How does the anxiety manifest itself in your DS?

Panic attacks, catastrophising, loss if appetite, insomnia, nausea, overwhelme, misophonia, lost friends.

Is he on any meds?
We found DD needed the meds to operate at all to then access therapy.
Is he able to work / study at all or has that all gone out the window?

DD lost her friends as she didn't return to school after the pandemic.

He had a bad experience on Sertraline when he first started taking them as they made him feel even worse and he is now too scared to try anything.
This is why am trying Young Vibes as its an alternative to medication.
He is still in Uni but misses mist of his lectures due to panic attacks but they are aware that he is struggling and give him extra time to complete modules.

My DD is/has been on:
Fluoxetine (for depression but with anti anxiety effects)
Propranolol - for anxiety, alleviates immediate symptoms
melatonin - to aid sleep
something hydrochloride - little blue pill, knocks out for sleep

Making sure she got good sleep was the first step.

At least at £55 per week you are only spending a bit of money at a time. Not like the THOUSANDS they asked upfront initially.

Presumably he has tried all the usual calming techniques such as breathing, 54321 etc.

Yes, he has hut not sure how much he really engages with things. So far the modules that I have done ( parents have to do them 1st) sewm spot on so no red flags yet.

Super, I hope it works for your family.

It isn’t just the cost. It’s ineffective and they are nasty people. Sadly, I know it’s stressful and you want help, but these people are not the help you need. No proper training or background. Abusive, uneducated, threatening, bullying kind of people. Our experience with them was horrible and ineffective.

And if you study the language of many of the reviews, they sound just like the owner. They share some sound neuroscience but there is nothing ground breaking and the owner says the most outrageous things to children.
Personally, I would run the other way but you have to do what feels right for you. Have you seen the beyond unprofessional emails the owner sends out to unhappy families? There are a lot of chat groups that are private out there as they threaten people who aren’t happy. The BBC did a report as well. Nobody who cares about families would ever engage in those behaviors displayed by the BBC report.

Do you know if your DD smokes pot? My friend’s DD was and got more paranoid and depressed. It decreases dopamine. I know this is not your DD fault and anxiety is huge with many children and adults, for good reason. It’s just one idea. And nutrition?

Sorry you are going through this. You can private message me for some ideas that our GP gave us for my son.

We paid the £5,000 like dummies and our daughter is still not well. Sam said some really inappropriate things to our daughter but refuses to give us the video with our SAR request. They have nothing magic in their program. It is basic neuroscience but if it helps you, wonderful. It’s not easy to watch a child suffer.

Avoid them like the plague. They were going under The Mumsnet. Kactus Kids, Young Vibes, Stop Anxiety Now. Now they are Anxious to Awesome.

they have no formal training or education and they will tell you that no Doctor No school no psychiatrist can help but only they can help. Go and look at the Charlie Waller trust. Eventually we just got our daughter a therapist and our daughter loved the therapist. Our daughter couldn’t stand Sam. She said she was absolutely crazy, and Sam said inappropriate things to our daughter to “break the ice and get to know her”. My daughter said Sam was crazy and never wanted to get back on the phone with her unless it was to laugh at her. They promise you refunds and they will never give them to you. They will refuse subject access request. They will refuse to let you watch the videos of your child in the session. They have been in trouble with trade standards and the BBC did a very damming report about these people. Any legitimate business does not go around changing their name all the time. You build trust in your brand. If you have to go around changing your name all the time it’s because you’re doing things that are not right. And after my experience with these people. I will never trust a single review on Trustpilot even though I’ve written probably 25 honest reviews on the site.

I'm going to add a reply here because I want people to avoid this company at all costs. We joined the programme out of desperation. We'd tried so many things for our child but he was still avoiding school. I booked a call with Sam and was looking forward to having a chat with her. When I called her, she was totally preoccupied doing something else, out on a walk with her dog. I could hardly hear her and when I told her a little about my son, she was quite abrupt and rude and just said "Well, of course he is having problems" - I should have avoided any more contact, but I signed up that afternoon.

The programme is split into sections. The first is called Bumblebee and is designed for parents. I sat through video after video after video where Sam talked about anxiety and how to understand it. I was more distracted by Sam's changing hairstyles than inspired by the content! These videos have no logical order, they have obviously been cobbled together from years of video, and are incredibly repetitive. I find Sam's delivery style very cold. I did not warm to her or her style at all. I already had a lot of information about anxiety after months of reading about it. I didn't need more and got very little out of these videos. I made it through to the end, nonetheless. And then there are the parent Zoom sessions, which are more like a cult meeting. I never got a turn to talk because everybody was trying to get their own points across and we were told the same thing over and over - fight the school, don't listen to the doctor's diagnosis, leave your child to their own devices, over and over and over.

And then, the price shot up from £58 to £75! It's a total money grab. Why would a company change their name several times if they were legit? They will give you reasons for that. It's all nonsense. And they are rude and patronising. You only have to see some of their arrogant marketing content to see that. I would really do my homework before having anything to do with them.

Our experience was very similar. You said this well.

The overwhelming number of 5-star reviews from Trust Pilot accounts with only a single previous review, all praising the various companies founded by Sam and Martin Robbins for children with anxiety, is highly suspicious. These one-off positive reviews are likely the result of incentivized discounts or are simply fabricated, as it is abnormal for customers to provide such effusive praise for what appear to be unprofessional and incompetent business owners.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/youngvibes.co.uk

Despite seeing red flags, I was convinced to join the program and pay a substantial sum of money based on the reviews on TRUST PILOT. However, I will not trust that platform again. If you are considering, trust that the high praise comes from someone who has only posted 1 review. That is highly suspect.

They have dispensed medication advice, said Autism is not real, bad mouthed doctors, teachers, psychiatrists and therapists.

https://luminarypodcasts.com/listen/bbc/file-on-4/mental-health-profiteers/d2ec85b6-0fde-4c79-afe4-11cb5c02d245?country=US

Sam called therapists Crusty Old Middle-Aged Women

SAMANTHA ROBINS: Why are you saying it like that? Children, if you go to any therapy where you’ve got some crusty old middle-aged woman who’s sitting there saying, how do you feel, these children are put in front of other people who have gone through the process or who have recovered themselves. You do not need to be qualified to coach children out of anxiety. And these people come here and they say, oh, it’s so much money, why are you charging so much money? It’s not that much money. Like I say, for SAMANTHA ROBINS cont: - 20 - fifteen years we paid over £2,000 a month for our children, and then I have a mother coming to me saying, I’m not spending five and a half on my child, and I think, my goodness, really?

This is part of the BBC podcast Mental Health Profiteers that features....you guessed it....our very own "mental health" profiteers.

DEITH: Part of the script was to explore how much cash people had to pay you, and there was encouragement to families to take on debt. There was talk about putting things on credit cards, taking out loans through you. Are you comfortable with that? MARTIN ROBINS: We use it as a vehicle of last resort. If they wanted to join our programme and have exhausted all other possibility, we say you could try these people. SAMANTHA ROBINS: DEITH: Jane, do you think we’re bad people? I’m asking you the questions, Sam. Is it right to start a webinar - which is a parent’s first glimpse really of your company – by saying that, you know, worst case scenario, some children make a cry for help and some don’t make it? In other words, they commit suicide. SAMANTHA ROBINS: It is brutal, it’s awful and if you want me to take it down, we will take it down. However, there’s many mums who will say, I listened to it and it was me, and it was me, and it was me. I have admitted that our marketing was atrocious and we are changing it, we have changed it. We have got a completely different way of doing it. DEITH: SAMANTHA ROBINS: no one can see it. DEITH: they still linked to the webinar. SAMANTHA ROBINS: You haven’t taken it down yet? No, we have taken it down, because there’s no adverts, But I think the adverts were available yesterday and It is down now. MUSIC - 21 - DEITH: Sam told us they’d taken down the social media adverts that linked to the webinar, and that was true - the day we did the interview. But the very next day, the company was advertising on social media again, and you can still book onto the webinar, so we’re right back where we started. The Advertising Standards Authority has investigated, but that seems to be about as far as it goes for now. Let’s remember, as ‘coaches’, Sam’s team aren’t breaking any laws. Chloe spent weeks on Sam and Martin’s anxiety programme and didn’t feel any better. She says, far from helping her move forward, the whole thing set her back.

If Sam will say things that are this BONKERS to a reporter, imagine what she will say to your child. She said the most ridiculous, unhelpful and unprofessional things to our child. Denies it all of course. But you can see WHO SHE IS by what she said here. It is recorded.

I do not have Facebook but if people are willing to post the link to the BBC report when they see the ads.

I joined the programme when it was being charged weekly. I was quite excited to get started. Sam promised so much. I wasn't sure what to expect, so you can imagine how surprised I was to see so many videos to watch about anxiety before my child was able to get involved. They all featured Sam, talking about herself and her own experience a lot, and they had no logical order at all. It was almost as though they wanted me to stay in that section for as long as possible, and of course they did when I was paying weekly. That first section could have been a third of the size and possibly shorter. And then suddenly, when I was two-thirds of the way through the videos (weeks later), they raised the cost from £58 a week to £75 a week. Well I was already stretched financially. I had to stop.

A couple of months later, I logged back in and found I still had access to the first section of the programme and so I rushed through the videos - seriously, this was stuff I knew already or that wasn't relevant to our situation. I'm in marketing and put programmes like this together for my clients. Seriously, it was awful. Is this really what they charged £5K for? Regardless, I finished the section and got back in touch with them to ask to rejoin as I'd managed to find the extra money. Martin sent me a rude email saying I'd rushed through the videos and that I needed to start all over again! I wasn't stupid. I could remember everything I had learned from two months ago. I realised then, it was all a money making scam. The rudeness, the telling me I had to start again, the fact my child couldn't start until they said he was ready. I'm glad I got out when I did.

She is now posting ads about ADHD and autism diagnosis being handed out like sweets and being similar when doctors said it was okay to smoke cigarettes in the 1960s. She is attacking people medicating their children when that medication can be a lifeline and the only thing that makes a difference. The woman is truly disgusting and has no idea what she is talking about.

Joined Young Vibes in May. It was honestly the best move ever.

Prior to joining our teen child was on waiting list for autism assessment after self harming age 11. CAMHS gave advice and resources but nothing helped. School supportive but child too anxious to attend. Counselling didn't help either & we were at our wits end.

Fast forward 5 months and she's back to school fully, attending all classes. She's joined a youth club and is no longer withdrawn and staying in her room.

This programme works for anxiety related issues. If she'd had a CAMHS assessment and autism diagnosed I genuinely don't see what support would have helped.

She now understands anxiety and how to deal with it. She is able to face challenging situations and takes herself out her comfort zone and knows she will and can cope.

Support staff in the school have also engaged fully with the guiding principles of this programme, in support of our daughter and are impressed by the outcome.

If you have a child too anxious to go to school and any of the information on Young Vibes website resonates with you, give it a go. But only if you are also willing to put in the work. The support for parents is terrific and our whole family has benefitted and we are all so much happier.

@Gizgog Welcome to mumsnet.

I am glad the programme worked for you. Can you tell us say 3 key things your daughter learned and 3 key changes you as a family had to make?

My daughter collapsed with anxiety and depression at the start of the pandemic, and through a combination of meds, therapy, and support/encouragement she is now nearly back to her own self again.

If your DD was awaiting an autism assessment, whatever autistic traits was she showing apart from anxiety related (eg being in crowds, noise, lights, germs) such as special interests, and have they now gone too?