Upcoming Events:
FREE LEARNING NIGHT
Devon Palmer will be presenting at a session for parents, proudly hosted by Robson Community School. The session is free to all. The focus of the session will be Understanding and Responding to Behaviour in Children, focused on Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (Ross Greene). April 29, 6:00-7:30pm in Robson. Please contact the Robson School Principal to register for the event.
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“We believe children’s behaviour reflects the skills they do or don’t have, as opposed to who they are.”
Psychology Services for the West Kootenays
Mountain Ridge Psychology Services specializes in child psychology, working with children, youth, and their families. Our objective is to provide comprehensive evidence-based assessment and intervention services to children, youth, and families closer to home. Based out of Rossland, BC, Mountain Ridge Psychology provides services to Trail, Castlegar, and Fruitvale.
Helping Families Find Success with their Children
Every child in our beautiful community is unique and getting a true understanding of the individual child’s strengths and challenges is a complex process. A child who appears to be having trouble with behavior or learning could have challenges in any number of areas including cognition, learning, attention, executive function, or emotion regulation, to name a few. Mountain Ridge Psychology has a broad range of experience in clinical and school psychology and will conduct a thorough and comprehensive assessment, and formulate a treatment plan for children who present with issues including the following:
- Learning Disabilities
- Giftedness
- Developmental/Intellectual Disabilities
- Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Behavioral Difficulties
- Anxiety
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
Comprehensive Psychological Assessment
Mountain Ridge Psychology offers comprehensive psychological assessments to help understand specific needs of children. More to the point, they specify optimal interventions for each individual child by providing a clear understanding of where processing breaks down. This lends itself to knowing where to target an intervention, and what type of intervention would have the greatest effect. A comprehensive psychological assessment can help diagnosis and bring light to clinical issues. But of equal value, a comprehensive psychological evaluation can also serve to identify islands of competence, or strengths, that each individual possesses. The purpose of assessment is for identifying and pin-pointing interventions.
Mountain Ridge Psychology works collaboratively with pediatricians, family physicians, specialists/therapists to ensure thorough care of each child, and can assist in providing referrals to acquire additional recommended services.
Assessments may consist of behavioral evaluations, academic assessment, intellectual processing assessment, memory assessment, measures of attention, assessment of executive processing skills, language assessment, fine motor skill evaluation, social responsiveness assessment,
Evaluations specific to queries of Autism, ADHD, FASD, Anxiety, Depression, Learning Disabilities, and Developmental Coordination Disorders are a few of the more common comprehensive assessment batteries conducted.
Psychotherapy Services
Psychotherapy is an evidence based treatment modality proven to be an effective tool to treat the emotional disorders of children and adolescents and adults. Psychotherapy is a collaborative individual therapeutic process to assess difficulties and symptoms, challenge thinking patterns and change maladaptive behaviour.
Mountain Ridge Psychology provides therapeutic supports for children and adolescents experiencing clinical and non-clinical mental health problems. Research shows that Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is the most effective therapeutic approach for managing anxiety. We have found that in some pediatric populations, Neuroeducational approaches to treating symptoms of anxiety are also effective at initial stages. Psychotherapy is offered at sessional rates.
Family Services
Mountain Ridge Psychology also provides family consultation/therapy around secondary family discord related to child behavior problems. Helping parents and families understand how to change their approaches to managing children with divergent disabilities is often not well understood by those who have never experienced such diversity or mental health problems in their children. Family therapy and family psychoeducation is offered at a sessional rate. Developing a knowledge and an understanding of how specific disabilities can impact behavior and daily functioning can make a world of difference in how we respond. Our response or reaction can build a child up, or tear them down. From psychoeducation, to strategies, to family therapy, Mountain Ridge Psychology believes that supporting families to function well, can be long term protective factors for children. 