The things parents ask me first

Probably yes, and the question itself is part of the answer. Most parents who arrive at this question have been minimising what they are carrying for a long time, often because they are comparing themselves to a parent whose situation looks worse. Therapy is not only for crisis. It is also for the slow erosions that make the rest of your life harder to enjoy, and the patterns that have been running you for years that you would like to understand. If we talk on the phone and I think therapy is not the right fit for what you are facing, I will tell you and point you toward what is.

No. As a Registered Social Worker, I do not require a doctor's referral. You can reach out directly. That said, some insurance plans require a referral to reimburse Social Work Services, so it is worth checking with your insurer if reimbursement matters to you.

Call or email and we will find a time. The number is (226) 270-7032 and the email is hello@heatheryoungcounselling.com. New clients always start with the consult before booking a paid session. It is a low-pressure way to ask anything you want, hear how I work, and get a sense of whether we are a good fit.

Individual counselling: $150 per 50-minute session. Parent support sessions for two parents: $175 per 50-minute session. Child sleep consultation (initial): $250 for a 60-minute session that includes an intake questionnaire, a written summary, and email support as you implement the plan. Sleep consultation follow-ups: $75 per 30-minute call. Every new client starts with a free 15-minute phone consultation. There is no charge for the consult and no obligation to book a session afterward.

Most extended health plans cover Social Work Services. After each session I send a paid receipt with my RSW number and the service code you can submit. Coverage varies by employer and by plan, so check with your benefits provider for the amount covered per session, the annual cap, and whether a doctor's referral is required for reimbursement.

Both. In person on Tuesdays at Southern Ontario Counselling Centre in St. Agatha, about five minutes from Waterloo. Virtually throughout the week across Ontario through secure video. Many clients use a mix: virtual most weeks, in-person occasionally when they want the change of setting.

Late cancellations are not charged. Life with kids brings unpredictability, and I would rather you cancel than push through a session that is not the right use of your time. Sessions that are completely missed without any notice are charged in full. Both of these are exceptions in practice; most clients communicate easily when something comes up.

I only see in-person clients on Tuesdays at present. If Tuesdays do not work for your schedule, virtual sessions across Ontario are available throughout the week and many local clients find that virtual works well for them. The option to start virtual and try in-person later (or vice versa) is also available.

Both happen, and both are workable. If Jane's video stops, we switch to Zoom; if your internet drops entirely, call (226) 270-7032 and we finish by phone. For privacy, many parents use a parked car, a bedroom with headphones, or sessions timed around naps. If none of that lands, we can talk through options on your free 15-minute consult, including whether in-person on Tuesdays in St. Agatha makes more sense for the season you are in.

We start with a free 15-minute phone call. You tell me what is going on, I ask a few questions, and we decide together whether I am the right fit. If during the call I think someone else would serve you better, I will tell you and point you toward what I know of in your area. The first session itself is also a fit conversation: we work together, and either of us can name it if the work is not landing.

It is almost always both, and untangling the two is one of the things we do. The parent you are is shaped by the person you have been your whole life, and parenthood often surfaces patterns that were there long before the kids arrived. We work with the parenting layer and the underneath layer, and the work compounds.

Probably, at some point, and only if it is relevant. Many of the patterns that show up in parenthood (the worry, the rage, the way you react under pressure) borrow scripts from what you experienced or witnessed when you were the child. Looking at those scripts is often what loosens their grip. But you lead, and we will not go anywhere your nervous system is not ready to go.

No. Most clients who come to me through this page do not arrive with a diagnosis, and many never need one. We start with what is actually happening in your body and your week, and the picture clarifies as we go. If a formal diagnosis becomes useful at some point, we can talk about how to get one. It is not a prerequisite for the work, and it is not what makes the work effective.

It is not too early. Prenatal mental health is part of perinatal mental health, and the work we do during pregnancy often makes the postpartum period easier. Many of the patterns that intensify after birth, the worry, the identity shifts, the fears about what kind of parent you will be, are already present in the third trimester. Naming them now is one of the gentler ways to soften them later.

Yes. The perinatal period includes the road to becoming a parent, not only the parenting itself. Infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, the long uncertainty of treatment, and the ambiguous losses that come with all of it are part of the territory. You do not have to be pregnant or postpartum for this to be the right place to begin.

We do not need to know yet to start working. Baby blues typically last a few days to two weeks after birth and pass on their own; what most people describe when they reach out has lasted longer than that. From the inside, postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression often look similar and often overlap. Anxiety tends to show up as a hyperaware brain, racing thoughts, intrusive imagery about what could go wrong with someone you love. Depression tends to show up as fog, flatness, sometimes a painful distance from the baby that has nothing to do with the kind of parent you are. We get specific about what is happening for you, and the picture clarifies as we go. A diagnosis is not a prerequisite. If your thoughts include intent or specific plans rather than fearful imagery, that is a different situation, and we will talk about it openly and find the right level of support.

Both are real questions and both deserve a real answer. The rage and overload many parents arrive with is most often a signal of depletion: unsupported, carrying too much, reaching for an outlet your nervous system found before your conscious mind could intervene. For some, it points to something underneath: an older pattern, a perinatal mood layer, a trauma history. We figure out which territory you are in together. And the work is yours: you do not have to bring your partner. The shifts that change the partnership most are usually the inner ones, in your sense of what is yours to carry and what you ask for.

Both, and they are usually linked. Many clients arrive carrying the question of whether they want to return to work at all, often before they have said it out loud anywhere. We make room for that, and the choice belongs to you: return, change roles, renegotiate hours, step away from the career. The thinking-through can happen here. The practical pieces sit alongside that: schedule, partner conversations, daycare-pickup logic, the lunches-and-laundry redistribution. Most of what is going wrong is part practical and part underneath, the guilt, the identity questions, the patterns from your own family about who is supposed to do what. The page-of-the-week is whichever piece is most urgent that week.

This is the question most parents arrive carrying, and it deserves a clear answer: a thoughtfully chosen, age-appropriate sleep plan, implemented with attunement to your specific child, does not damage attachment. What can erode the relationship is chronic exhaustion, parental burnout, and the resentment that builds when nobody in the family is sleeping. The harder question is which approach you can implement that fits with your family, and that is a question I take seriously with everyone I work with. There is more than one right way to do this.

Yes. Sleep consulting receipts are issued under Social Work Services the same way therapy receipts are. Many extended health plans will reimburse sleep consultations because the service is provided by a Registered Social Worker. As with therapy, confirm coverage with your insurer.

Yes. My primary practice is with parents, but I am qualified and experienced in working with adults navigating anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, chronic illness, or supporting someone close to them through one of these. Caregivers in particular carry a weight that often goes unnamed because the person who is ill is rightly the focus of everyone's attention. The work is for the patient, the caregiver, the partner, the adult child, the parent of an ill child. We start with what you are bringing in, parent or otherwise.

Yes. Many clients arrive carrying exactly that question. Grief does not need to be catastrophic to deserve attention, and it does not need to be recent to deserve attention either. If something has been taking up space in you that you have not had anywhere to put, this is a reasonable place to start. We can figure out together what the work would look like.

Probably yes, in pace and in breadth. Grief work often focuses narrowly on the loss itself, and some clients need that. Others need a wider lens that includes who you are now, what the loss has changed in your life, and what you are doing with it. "Life transition" is a useful umbrella for the kind of thing that is bigger than a single problem to solve but smaller than a full identity crisis. If the answers you used to have do not fit your questions anymore, the label fits. We can talk on the consult call about what your prior work focused on and what felt missing, and figure out what kind of work this would be.

Either, and we can talk about which fits best on the consult call. The parent-specific pages go deeper into the particular shape of the parenting transition you are in. This page is the umbrella for everything else, plus the parenting transitions that benefit from being framed as life transitions rather than parenting issues. If you are not sure where you fit, this page is a fine place to start, and we will route from there.

You are still welcome here. I work primarily with parents, but the methods I use (IFS, CBT, narrative therapy, mindfulness, attachment-aware work) apply to anyone navigating anxiety, depression, grief, chronic illness, life transitions, or identity questions. If you are unsure whether I am the right fit, the 15-minute consult is the right place to ask.