At Developing Minds, we are able to offer some psychological therapy sessions via telehealth (TH) if appropriate.

• We still require children/young people to attend face-to-face at least every 3-4 sessions - ie to not to only have TH sessions with us.

• Adult parent clients can be seen via TH for all of their 6 sessions of their therapy session.

• Telehealth sessions may not be appropriate at all for children aged under 12 years, or for young people of any age with risk concerns, communication or significant attention/concentration difficulties. Therefore please discuss the general suitability of telehealth sessions with your clinician before you have your first TH session (ie before you reply “TH” to our appointment reminders). You might also ask the admin team to check with the clinician if a TH is suitable. Once you have discussed that TH is suitable for your family, this doesn’t need to be done in an ongoing way before every session.

• For safety reasons in TH sessions with children/young people, parents/guardians (whose phone number we must have in our records) and their children/young people need to be in the same location (i.e. either in the room or in a nearby room) for the entire TH session in case there is a safety, distress or risk issue and the therapist needs to have a parent/guardian step in. This means TH sessions with children/young people can’t be at school with parents at home. *Children do not need to be present during a ‘parent/guardian only’ TH session*.

• At the same time, privacy is important for TH sessions. This means unless a caregiver is actually in the session at the time, children/teens in a TH session and their therapist should not be able to be overheard by others. Sometimes headphones may assist with this.

• We cannot have sessions using audio only (ie a phone call) unless there are exceptional reasons that video cannot be used (and can never have sessions on the phone while someone is driving).

• We use private “Google Meet” for our telehealth sessions (with a passcode) and only our therapists can “admit” people into the sessions. You should know that Google Meet uses cloud encryption to encrypt meeting data in transit. Google does not store video, audio, or chat data unless a meeting participant initiates a recording during the Meet session. We do not record our telehealth sessions and we request that you do not record the sessions.

• All Developing Minds policies apply in the same way for Telehealth as for face to face services (including fees, cancellation fees and eligibility). By you/your child/teen starting a telehealth session with your psychologist you are acknowledging that you have read and understood all of the above and accept these conditions. Thankyou 

Technical steps - Setting up the session

Your 10 letter Meeting Link will have been sent to you by your clinician anytime from up to 48 hours in advance, up until a few minutes before your session). It will usually be sent via SMS (but if you have communicated with your clinician before via email, it may come to you via email).

A. If you are using a laptop or a computer (**remember you need to have microphone, speaker and webcam**),

1. Go to meet.google.com on your usual browser (eg Chrome or Explorer)

2. In the box that says ‘Enter meeting code’ or ‘Enter a code or a nickname’ enter the 10 letter Meeting code (note - you can omit the dashes in the code) sent to you by your clinician and click Join.

3. Google Meet will ask if you are ‘Ready to join?’ Click Join now

4. You will then be in a ‘waiting room’. When your therapist is ready, they will ‘accept’ you into the meeting and the session will start.

B. If you are using a tablet (eg Ipad, Android tablet) or a smart phone:

1. If this is your first time using Google Meet on this device, download the Google Meet app from the Google Play/Apple Store - it is free.
   
   Open the Google Meet app. Click Join with a code and put in the 10 digit Meeting Link and click Join.

2. You will then need to click on ‘Ask to join’

3. You will then be in a ‘waiting room’. When your therapist is ready, they will ‘accept’ you into the meeting and the session will start.

Although the above works on a smart phone, TH sessions work best with a larger screen (laptop, computer or larger tablet) rather than a smart phone screen, which can be too small.

If something is not working or you feel overwhelmed - don’t worry. Please feel free to call the office on 8357 1711 and they will troubleshoot with you.

Best wishes,
The Developing Minds Team