We have exciting news to share! Dr. Vinita Menon and Dr. Melissa Terry have been invited to present at Thrive Summit 2027 in Paris. Their session will provide training for other therapists who want to use parent coaching as a clinical intervention rather than an afterthought.
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The session: “The Missing Piece (PEACE): Parent Coaching as a Clinical Intervention for Improving Child and Family Outcomes.”
Parent coaching often gets treated as an extra in therapy sessions. A few strategies on the way out the door, a handout in the folder, something that happens after the real work is finished. Dr. Menon and Dr. Terry have worked with hundreds of adults who identify parenting as one of their most anxiety-producing roles. We treat it as clinical work, because that’s what it is.
When a parent understands what is actually driving their child’s behavior, and leaves with something they can use at home on a Tuesday night, the change shows up across the whole family. Not only in the child.
Why the parent is the missing piece
Consider the arithmetic of a therapy hour. A child might spend fifty minutes a week with a psychologist. They spend the rest of the week with their parents, at the kitchen table, in the car, at bedtime, and in every hard moment that happens when no clinician is in the room.
That is not a limitation of therapy. It is the reason parent coaching matters. The adult who is there for all of those moments is the one best placed to change how they go. Our job as therapists is to support the adult in knowing what they are looking at and what to do next.
That is the case Dr. Menon and Dr. Terry are bringing to Paris. It is also the work they do here in Ottawa and wherever telehealth connects them every week, with families working through homework battles, hard mornings, difficult transitions, and the parts of the day that quietly wear everyone down.
About the summit
Thrive Summit 2027 runs April 1 to 4, 2027 at the Paris Marriott Opera Ambassador Hotel. It is hosted by the Thriving Well Institute, and the summit theme is “ILLUMINATE In the City of Lights; Reignite the Work You Love.”
Presenting to other clinicians means our work gets examined, questioned, and sharpened. That is the part we are looking forward to most, and the part that comes back to the families we see here.
What this means for the families we work with
Don’t worry. We won’t let this invitation go to our heads. 😄 Nothing about your care changes between now and next spring. What it does mean is that the thinking behind your family’s plan is the same thinking we will be presenting to other clinicians. If you are a parent working with us right now, the parent coaching part of your child’s care was never an add-on. It is the intervention.
What happens next
April 2027 is a long way off. There is nothing here to sign up for, unless you’re a clinician looking to join us for the summit in Paris. If that’s you, get more information HERE. We will share more as the date gets closer, including what we learn (and probably a little about what we eat!) in Paris.
In the meantime, the work continues here in Ottawa and across PSYPact states. If you have only ever been handed a leaflet on the way out of an appointment, it is worth knowing that this can sit at the center of a plan rather than as a footnote to one. That holds whether your family is adjusting to a new diagnosis, facing a school year that is off to a rough start, or living with a pattern at home that has stopped responding to everything you have already tried.
If you would like to work with us, you can read more about Dr. Menon and Dr. Terry, or schedule a free consult.
