Mental health concerns, eating disorders and addiction can happen to anyone at any time. Whilst there is no single reason that this is happening to your child or teenager, research has consistently highlighted numerous risk factors.

These can include genetic links, such as neurodevelopmental disorders, developmental challenges or a mental health diagnosis within the extended family, prematurity at birth and other biological risk factors.

Trauma can also play a large role in the development of mental health problems in childhood and into early adulthood. Trauma is the descriptive term for the experience that we feel on the inside when situations, places and people are overwhelming, damaging, hurtful, life threatening or problematic for us as individuals. These can include: being bullied, divorce, family separation, medical procedures, disability, addiction in the family and mental health diagnoses. Trauma is a very personal experience, created by events that lead to complex and unresolved feelings. Trauma can be a singular event or a series of events that continue over time.

Families, peer groups and social experiences (both on and offline) have an effect on the development of young people. Many experiences are of course positive. However, those that are negative can reinforce maladaptive coping mechanisms or reinforce a negative system.

Families often feel responsible for ‘fixing’ the problems alone, but it is essential to have a support network for the entire family.

The most important decision that you can make as a family is to reach out for help.

Once in treatment, the family unit can provide invaluable support and encouragement right from the start. Positivity and actively encouraging engagement in the treatment process really helps young people to stay on track with their treatment goals. Lots of young people will attempt to ‘divide and rule’, so we ask that our families stay in close contact with the therapy team to keep treatment moving forwards.

As one member of the family begins to change and take on a new role, there will be a shift in the whole family unit. This is where families can engage in family therapy to resolve past issues and creatively plan for a brighter future together.

As treatment progresses we will ask for further input. We will work to understand and rebuild the family dynamics, request that family members complete some homework and recommend further family therapy where appropriate.

We work closely with each family to address old patterns of behaviour, whilst providing coping skills and practical advice for post-treatment family life. We explore the expectations of the whole family as we move from admission, stabilisation and into forward planning. We consider every family to be a valuable part of our Wave team.

Upon admission you will receive a patient questionnaire along with some essential homework for the family. It is helpful for the treatment team to have a good understanding of the problems that the family have faced and how the mental health, behavioural concerns, addiction or eating disorder have affected the family as a whole.

We will invite the family to take part in family therapy sessions, when clinically appropriate, either in person or by video conferencing. We will help to adjust family dynamics; which may have become strained during the acute phase prior to admission. We value our families input throughout the process.

Working together we can access family strengths and look at the areas that need additional support or guidance. We want to know what is important to each young person and their family’s shared goals for treatment.

Try not to be nervous. We are on your ‘team’. We will spend some time gathering information on the areas that your family would like to focus on during therapy sessions. We will also have some ideas of our own following extensive work during our sessions whilst in treatment.

This will be balanced with plenty of time to ask and answer questions and provide information, insight and education.

You will all be together for at least part of the family sessions, with other opportunities to split into subgroups or even meet the family therapist individually. We will help you to understand how the family interacts, the communication patterns and the roles assumed in the family dynamic.

We will ask you all to take an honest look at life and communication in the family. We are going to ask you to be brave and confront some of your own fears and be gently direct when working with other members of the family.

Most importantly, we are there to support you every step of the way.

Family systems are often complex. Many feelings can arise in the sibling relationship when one or more young people engage in residential treatment or outpatient sessions.

Sibling relationships may be competitive and include comparisons, even jealousy. Whilst some rivalry and disagreements between brothers and sisters is very normal, there are some sibling relationships that require support and therapeutic intervention.

Twin and multiple birth relationships can bring a further dynamic to the treatment planning, for one or more of the young people involved. Special care needs to be taken of those in treatment and those experiencing the changes at home.

The Wave team will assess (if appropriate) sibling relationships and recommend appropriate and complimentary treatment either with our team or our network of family therapist in the UK, Middle East, Australia or Europe. If siblings need to engage in treatment simultaneously, we will work with the family and worldwide treatment facilities to coordinate family therapy sessions.

Open communication is essential to the work we do.

We have WhatsApp groups for family members and the clinical/medical team, where updates are regularly posted and families are free to ask questions or just send a hug or gentle goodnight wish. We also keep families updated with any general or more pressing developments via these chat groups.

Families receive weekly reports, which highlight our treatment planning and objectives across our six treatment elements. The reports are sent by the primary clinician, with input from our whole clinical team.

Weekly clinical/medical meetings are held on Wednesdays and all changes to treatment planning are discussed and forwarded to the family.

We will always respond to any communication as soon as we can, but ask families to appreciate that the time difference may mean a slight delay.

We do accept parcels and letters to our administrative office. For the safety of our young guests, our teams, and your family, we ask that flowers and food items are not sent. We ask that families do not send parcels to the residential centre directly. Our reception is open during normal office hours at: Level 23, NU Tower, 2, Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Kuala Lumpur Sentral, 50470, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia

We believe in our young people’s right to confidentiality. There are a few occasions when we may need to discuss this with our young people further or when they may wish to change or update who we share information with.

There are some things that our young people might wish to remain in the private space between them and their therapist. There may be others that, in the interest of healing, are better to be shared. This is a process that will be undertaken with their therapist, who will support them in making informed decisions.

Prior to any family sessions we will carefully discuss with all family members the hopes and outcomes for the therapy sessions. We advocate for confidentiality, safe spaces and the involvement of the family where therapeutically beneficial. We will help to resolve family conflict, listening to differing viewpoints and give space to express all emotions in a sensitive way.

The Wave family program has evolved as a result of many years of working with families from all over the world. Our clinical team has experience of producing programs and interventions that are both culturally appropriate and sensitive to the needs of each family.

Each family has hopes, desires and expectations for treatment and beyond. We hope that our families will gain valuable insight and education, together with an opportunity to benefit from the experience of our clinical team in the therapy environment.

We will look at problem-solving techniques, expand social and professional support systems and plan life and recovery after treatment ends. Our families tell us that they gained fellowship, friendship and knowledge. We consider many of them as lifelong members of our extended family; regularly welcoming them back for visits and special occasions.

‘Effective’ means something very different to every family that we meet. The goals for treatment are unique and every family has a slightly differing view on what success would mean for them. Studies showing numbers and percentages mean very little, when the person that you care about seems resistant to treatment or change.

Upon admission, we conduct a series of standardised psychological assessments and mental health evaluations. We use this as a baseline to measure symptom severity, trauma, hope for the future, self-efficacy, communication and ability to form and maintain relationships with others. We also look at areas such as depression and anxiety or insomnia. By creating a baseline, we are able to monitor self-reported change and progress and use daily clinical observations to support the pathway to lasting change and the effectiveness of clinical/medical interventions.