Social Emotional Consultation: Parent/Caregiver
Support for You as You Support Your Child
Young children are still learning how to understand feelings, communicate needs, build relationships, and manage everyday challenges. As a parent or caregiver, you may sometimes wonder what a behavior means, how to respond, or whether something your child is experiencing is typical.
Social Emotional Consultation (SEC) offers free support for families of young children from birth to age 5 who are enrolled in an early care or education setting. A consultant can help you think through what’s happening and explore practical ways to support your child.
How Can Consultation Help My Family?
Consultation can help you better understand your child’s social and emotional development and think through challenges related to child care or early learning.
You and your consultant might talk about:
- Big feelings or challenging behaviors
- Routines and transitions
- Friendships and relationships with caregivers or teachers
- Differences between home and child care
- Changes or stressors affecting your child
- Ways to partner with your child’s teacher or provider
- Strategies that can be used across home and child care
- Additional resources when more support may be helpful
The goal isn’t to “fix” your child. It’s to better understand what your child may be communicating and strengthen the support around them.
What Does Consultation Look Like?
Your consultant may listen to your concerns, ask about your child’s strengths and needs, help identify patterns, and explore strategies that fit your family.
When helpful, consultation may also include collaborating with your child’s early care and education provider or observing your child in their care setting.
One Service. Flexible Ways to Get Support.
Social Emotional Consultation is available across Michigan and may happen in person, virtually, or through a combination of both, depending on your location, needs, and consultant availability.
You don’t need to decide what type or length of support you need before reaching out. Sometimes a few conversations are enough; other situations may benefit from more ongoing consultation. You and your consultant will decide together what makes sense.
Just Have a Question? Try Office Hours.
Sometimes you don’t need ongoing consultation. You just want to talk something through.
Social Emotional Consultation Office Hours offer a brief, one-on-one opportunity to connect with a consultant for support, problem-solving, or another perspective.
Office Hours may be a good fit if you have a specific question, aren’t sure what to try next, or want help deciding whether additional support could be useful.
No ongoing commitment is required.
What Social Emotional Consultation Is — and Isn’t
Consultation is:
- Free
- Supportive and collaborative
- Relationship-based
- Flexible to your family’s needs
Consultation is not:
- Therapy or clinical treatment
- A diagnosis
- An evaluation of your parenting
- A monitoring service
- A service designed to “fix” your child
- A one-size-fits-all solution
What Happens When I Reach Out?
1. Tell us what’s on your mind.
Complete our short Social Emotional Consultation Interest Form.
2. Get connected with support.
Based on your location, needs, and consultant availability, you’ll be connected with a Social Emotional Consultant.
3. Decide together what would be helpful.
You and your consultant will talk about what’s happening and decide what kind of support makes sense.
You don’t need to know exactly what you need before reaching out. Figuring that out together is part of consultation.
Ready to Talk It Through?
You know your child best. Sometimes it helps to have another person alongside you to help make sense of what’s happening and think through what to try next.
For more information about Social Emotional Consultation, please contact us.