A consultation is a one to one session between you, and a partner, coparent, or regular carer; and a consultant. The focus is on a single parent/carer-child or family. 

A consultation involves working with a consultant to undertook the issues you face, any underlying possible causes, and the needs of both child/ren and parent/s or carers. The aim is to find balanced solutions that meet the needs of all parties involved.

Consultations can help you situate the issue you are having in context, recognise your unmet needs, and those of your child/ren, and provide you with evidence based information relating to the issues, and support you using frameworks, to find solutions that meet the needs of all involved and fit your unique family culture. 

A consultant will not tell you what to do. They will not make decisions for you.  They may help you understand the possible actions you could take, and the pros and cons of these actions. They may help you reframe the problem and see it in terms of unmet needs. This can mean that you discover a huge range of options you may never have considered.

Consultations are highly valuable and most parents find that they understand their situation and problems differently and understand how they might approach solving this issue, and similar issues in future. 

You can find a list of consultants who currently are currently licensed to offer BabyCalm or ToddlerCalm sessions in our “Find support” page. You can select by location if you prefer an in person consultation. You can also pick based on whose interests or skill sets look most relevant from consultants that offer phone or online consultations.

CalmFamily trained specialists who are not currently licensed to run our programmes are not usually listed on our website. However, they are still able to offer consultations based on the training they received with us. This group do not receive the updated frameworks, research or training, so may not be as up to date as those listed on our website. 

All consultants, whether listed on our website, or trained by us should hold their own insurance for any services they offer. 

The topics that can be covered in a consultation are flexible and wide ranging. Parents who have trained as baby specialists can cover all elements of life with a baby, likewise for toddler trained specialist.s Consultants trained in multiple programmes can consider elements across both specialisms. However, this is not all. Our trained consultants may have other training that they can bring to your session. This may include services such as lactation consultation, sling consultant, alternative therapies or approaches such as reflexology, psychology, play therapy, counselling, infant massage yoga or sensory play specialisms. 

Our trained consultants have a diverse wealth of backgrounds. In a bespoke consultation they can draw upon all of their resources to offer you information and to help you to consider solutions or approaches that may help to meet your needs. The beauty of consultations is how they are specially formulated to meet your needs!

If a consultant is not confident covering the issues you raise, even with preparation time, we expect them to signpost you to another service or a consultant better placed to advise you, or to proceed having made it clear what they can and cannot cover. 

Consultants are not usually medical practitioners. Those that are will not usually offer medical advice in a consultation, but may signpost you to see them in another context or see your medical team if they suspect any health issues requiring medical intervention. Consultants can work with parents and children with medical conditions. The parent remains the expert in their family, and so is responsible for ensuring that any advice given is suitable for their unique needs. 

No, even a consultation that covers a broadly similar topic to a workshop will be nothing like attending that workshop. A consultation about your baby’s sleep will not be like having a baby sleep workshop run just for you. This is because that would not be the most valuable use of that time. Instead a consultation looks at the specific issues that you are facing, and can make links over multiple areas of your life. This is something that they cannot do in detail for every attendee at a group workshop or course. 

Workshop and course content follows a defined, although not rigid structure, to ensure that everyone gets what they expect out of the service. Consultation support is negotiated with the specific client, and only has to take into account the needs of that single client family.

They are much more targeted. They can be really helpful for parents with multiple issues or concerns, who like to work through issues in a discursive way, or prefer not to do so with other people they may or may not know. They can be effective for parents who have attended workshops and have continued to struggle, or experience changing issues.

Consultations can take place in various locations or formats. They may take place in your home as client, or the consultant’s home or work place. You may also choose a public space such as a quiet cafe or similar. Some consultants offer online or phone consultations, where the location, and also the distance between client and consultant is less relevant. The location should be somewhere that you and the consultant feel safe, and where you feel free to express yoursekf and discuss potentially emotional or sensitive subjects.

All consultants run their consultations somewhat differently based on their own working style and preferences. 

Once you have booked a consultation they will usually provide you with a form or questionnaire to understand the scope of the  topics and issues you are looking to address. After they receive your answers they may contact you again to clarify some of your answers or to ask any relevant follow up questions.  This allows them to prepare for your specific circumstances.

During a session they will discuss the issues you are facing and look at what needs you have that are going unmet, and what needs may be underlying the issues fro your child/children. 

You consultant will provide high quality evidence based information about the issue, and about relevant psychology and development, including human needs. 

You will work with the consultant to consider frameworks for approaching your issue, to find solutions, informed by the information they have provided. This is not a one size fits all approach. Constulants will not tell you what to do. They do not know what will work, fit your family culture or your values. They will help you consider the pros and cons of any interventions or approaches that you might apply and be a sounding board. They will help you to ensure that anything you try balances parent’s and children’s needs or work out other areas in life that unmet needs can be met where a situation is necessarily unbalanced.

No, however there is a limit to how much can be covered in any given amount of time.

Many consultants offer a long main session, and then a follow up shorter session or email follow ups.  If you have multiple, or complex issues then you may find that you benefit from 2 or more longer sessions, separated by a period that you agree with the consultant. This can give you time to take in information, try different techniques, and feedback on their impact, knowing that you have ongoing support to work through these and other issues. If you feel that this may be beneficial then feel free to raise this with your chosen consultant. 

Before a consultation you will usually place an enquiry with a consultant either by email, message, or through a form on their website. They will then send you a form to fill out so that they can get a feel for you, your family, and the issues that you want to cover. This needs to be completed and returned to the consultant with plenty of time before your session to allow them to prepare. They may have follow up questions to clarify any answers or the scope of the issues you wish to address. 

They should give you a clear understanding of how they usually run consultations, or negotiate the best structure or consultation set up to suit you and your needs. They should be clear about how the main consultation will run, and what, if any follow up support is included in their package. 

They may offer different rates for multiple sessions, or have discounts for subsequent consultations. Consultations are bespoke sessions to suit your needs. Feel free to ask about any changes that you would find beneficial, but be mindful that our consultants are well trained and professional and that there will be charges for, for example, a double length consultation, or multiple follow up sessions. We aim to ensure that our services are accessible whilst ensuring that our consultants value their services and their work and pay themselves for their time.

This varies from consultant to consultant. They should make clear what, if anything, you can expect after the consultation before you go ahead with the consultation. You may receive a recording of a video session, emailed or posted handouts or materials, or an emailed summary of your consultation session. Some consultations cover a follow up session in person, online, or over the phone that allows you to reflect on the changes that you have made, and to revise these afterwards. Some consultants will offer a certain number of emails or enquiry responses after the main session of a consultation within a specified period of time.

Where you are uncertain what to expect after a consultation you should clarify this with the individual consultant, ideally before your consultation. 

We won’t, you will. We do not know your family like you do. Our consultants are highly trained, and provided with up to date information, understand how different techniques can work and support different needs. However the needs and situation of every family is unique. This is why we share the information and the options with parents and teach them how to decide what might best work to meet the needs of their family. 

We are not the experts in your family. You are. We strongly mistrust any parent support service that claims expertise greater than that of the parents they support. We will not be on hand to parent your child. All we can do is support you, emotionally, with information and with options. This is hugely effective. Because we never tell you what to do, you don’t become reliant on us as experts to step in and solve your problems. This is a common problem with other experts led solutions. 

If we help you figure out how to crack this problem then next time you encounter an issue you will already have more information, and lots of frameworks and tools to choose from. you will know how to work out what your needs are, and evaluate which tools might best address your needs and fit your specific family situation. Our aim is to empower you to make your own parenting choices with confidence now and in the future. 

No, not unless the service you receive has been wholly unsatisfactory. We do not aim to solve your problems. We aim to offer you information, and a non-judgmental space to explore your problems, apply information, and consider what options or approaches you may use to improve your situation. We cannot promise to solve your problems, only to support you to do so with the tools we have on offer. That being said, our consultants are very successful at supporting parents to do just this. 

If you are unsatisfied with the service you received then contact the consultant to explain your concerns or expectations. If you feel that there is an issue that needs to be dealt with by someone else then get in touch with us at hq@calmfamily.org  

If you experience judgmental, or prejudiced treatment from a consultant that you feel contravenes our inclusivity policy then please do get in touch with us at hq@calmfamily.org. Likewise if you feel that you received seriously inaccurate or unsafe information, then please get in touch.

The short answer is, often, yes. The remit and purpose of workshops and consultations and workshops is quite different. There is not the time to go through everyone’s complex situations in detail in a workshop and still cover all the content. Parents often seek a consultation after attending a workshop where they have found that their situation has improved or changed somewhat, but they would benefit from support for their specific needs. 

There is often a great deal of value in building on your base of understanding and the tools available gained from a workshop. Consultations offer you opportunity to look more in-depth into the developmental psychology or biology that may be influencing your issues, or the imbalance in how situations are meeting the needs of all of those in your family and to consider what tools may help,.

Some consultants may offer a discount, or bonus element to services such as consultations from parents who have attended their courses or sessions. 

Yes. The courses that our consultants are trained in have been rewritten twice since the books were originally written by Sarah Ockwell Smith.  We have consulted with world leading experts, and regularly update and review information .The books remain unchanged. They are a great starting point, however they are not the same as having someone who has spent a long time researching the topics at hand work with you one to one to help you understand and devise a strategy for your specific situation. 

There is often a great deal of value in building on your base of understanding that you have gained from the books.  However, being able to look more in-depth into the developmental psychology or biology that may be influencing your issues, or the imbalance in how situations are meeting the needs of all of those in your family is still hugely valuable.