Services Offered
Parent Skills Group
Change the pattern. Not just the moment.
Our Parent Skills Group starts with you the parent: you will learn how to manage your own emotions during challenging interactions with your child and learn how to respond to your child more effectively. We teach Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills designed specifically for parents. Clinical research clearly shows that when parents can effectively use these skills in their own family, it helps reduce their child’s emotional distress. You can find a more detailed description of the curriculum outlined below.
Parents who learn DBT Parent Skills often see better outcomes for their child's own treatment and notice a real drop in their own stress and burnout.
You'll learn alongside other parents facing similar challenges — you’ll hear what's working for them, you’ll share what you have learned, and you’ll come to see that you're not the only family navigating these kinds of challenges.
Our next Parent Skills Group starts Monday, September 28th, 2026:
Skills group runs weekly until Monday, December 14th, 2026.
Time: 12:00–1:30 PM EST (over your lunch hour)
Format: Virtual (Zoom)
Pricing: $150 - per person for 1.5 hour session ($250/couple)
Intake call: 60 min call to ensure suitability for the group and learn how the group will be organized.
Who This Group is For:
This 8-week group (virtual) is intended for parents whose teen or adult children struggle with emotional dysregulation and related problems. Examples of this kind of challenging behaviour ranges from self harm, substance use, angry outbursts or suicidal ideation to chronic conflict and disconnection. Groups are 1.5 hours long and include both skills development and an opportunity to apply new skills with help and support from the group facilitators. The goal is to help parents reduce their stress and burnout while also helping them build, or rebuild, loving and effective relationships with their children. These groups will be limited to 12 participants to enhance learning and practice.
What you'll learn in Parent Skills Group:
Learn how emotionally dysregulated communication and invalidating responses can create a cycle of parent-child interactions that strain relationships and make conflict/disconnection more likely.
Understand how chronic emotion dysregulation in children (including suicidality, self-harm, substance use etc.) can create stress- and trauma-related reactions in parents.
Learn self-care & emotion regulation skills to reduce your own vulnerability to emotion dysregulation and reduce your suffering as a parent.
Learn relationship mindfulness skills: how to start to bring increased curiosity and love to our relationships when it can feel especially hard to do so.
Understand both the role of validation and how to validate your child effectively.
Learn when and how to observe your limits with your child without damaging the relationship.
How to accept reality, especially when we don't like it. Wrap up with a commitment to deliberate practice of skills.
Why a Group Format?
Because Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is a skills-based therapy, how you learn it matters — and research consistently shows people learn and retain skills better in a group than one-on-one. Practicing alongside other parents, hearing how they're applying these tools in their own homes, and realizing you're not the only one struggling with this, all help the skills actually stick.
Who Will be Teaching the Group:
Amanda Young, MSW, RSW and Dr. Molly Robertson, Ph.D., C. Psych
Parent Skills Group Co-Facilitator
Dr. Molly Robertson Ph.D., C. Psych.
Dr. Molly Martha Robertson is a staff psychologist in the Borderline Personality Disorder clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and has her own private practice. At CAMH, she’s involved in DBT clinical service delivery, research, supervision, and capacity-building training. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University and has worked in a variety of hospital and community-based mental health settings throughout New York City and Toronto. She has a particular passion for working with emotion regulation difficulties, supporting both individuals and parents. Molly brings her experience, warmth, and humour to helping clients increase compassion as they work towards growth and change.
Couples Counselling
Many couples struggle because of difficulty regulating their emotions. I help partners better understand one another by teaching them how to recognize what they want/need and then express themselves accurately while also really listening, accepting and understanding what their partner is saying to them. Our work also looks at ways to become more mindful of the relationship itself; how to balance one’s own needs with those of your partner and the relationship overall. Once a couple has learned a new cycle of improved communication and understanding, then we move onto collaborative problem solving. This kind of couples work often leads to a reduction in stress and conflict and an increase in loving care and connection.
Family Therapy and Parent Coaching
Some clients prefer to work as parents separate from their adolescent or adult child and in other cases it makes more sense to have both the parent(s) and the child(ren) together in family therapy sessions. Either way, the aim is to help parents and their children understand how they are impacting each other and then learn Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills that empower everyone to have more effective interactions. This includes learning how to express oneself accurately, as well as how to listen, accept, and understand each other. Once people can do this, conflict is reduced, collaborative problem solving becomes possible and people feel more connected.
Examples of issues that I help clients with using either parent coaching and/or family therapy include:
Families where one (or more) people are struggling with mental health challenges.
When an adolescent or young adult child is struggling to “launch” into adulthood.
Families seeking to mend a rupture or estrangement.
Reducing conflict and increasing understanding within a family, especially when one family member feels different and/or misunderstood.
Resolving conflicts between different generations within the same family.
Improving family communication around major milestone events such as weddings, cottage summers, holiday celebrations.
Helping families navigate interpersonal issues that can come up in the context of working together in a family business.
Consultation and Supervision for DBT Therapists
I am the Canadian team member at The Center for DBT and Families - an international organization that specializes in training and supervising other therapists in delivering DBT to parents, families and couples. I have specialized in working with parents, couples and families for more than 10 years and love to supervise/train others in how to do this important work. The clinical research shows that when parents and families are involved in treatment, the outcomes for the struggling loved one are improved for everyone - the child, parent and family.
If you would like to consult on a particular case and/or receive regular supervision in working with couples and families, I would be happy to connect with you. I can be reached at amandayoungmsw@gmail.com.
Free Initial Phone Consultation
I offer a 15 minute phone call for prospective clients to determine if I am the best fit for them. You are also welcome to ask any questions you may have.