Counselling for teenagers, including ADHD support

No. Advance Minds does not assess or diagnose ADHD, and it is worth saying that plainly rather than leaving you to find out after you have booked. A diagnosis in Australia comes from a paediatrician, psychiatrist or psychologist, and the usual route is through your GP. What happens here is the support around that: before an assessment, while you are waiting for one, and afterwards.

Start with the GP. For a young person under 18 they will usually refer to a paediatrician, and for an older teenager to a psychiatrist or psychologist. Only a psychiatrist or paediatrician can prescribe ADHD medication. Public waiting lists can run for many months and private assessments cost several hundred to a few thousand dollars, so it is worth asking the GP about both. If you want help working out which door you are meant to be knocking on, that is a reasonable thing to bring to a session.

Yes, and the waiting period is often when families are struggling most, with nothing happening and school getting harder. None of the practical work depends on the label: routines that hold, homework that gets started, sleep, friendships, and the self-esteem damage that builds up in a young person who has been told for years that they are lazy or not trying.

Medication is managed by the prescriber and nobody here will touch it. What it does not do is teach a fifteen-year-old how to organise their week, handle frustration, or undo years of believing they are the problem. That is the work, alongside practical support for parents on what to change at home.

Plenty arrive angry about being made to. That is workable, and it is usually better than a young person performing cooperation. The first session is not an interrogation, and a teenager who says almost nothing for forty minutes has still worked out that the room is not a trap. If they flatly refuse, book for yourself instead. Changing how the household responds is real work rather than second best.

You will be kept in the loop about how it is going and what would help at home, and you will not be given a transcript. Teenagers stop saying anything real the moment they believe it goes straight back to a parent, and at that point the sessions are worthless. Anything affecting their safety is different and would always be raised with you, and there are limits set by law where a young person is at risk of harm.

With your consent, yes. Sophia works closely with parents and educators so that home and school are using the same strategies rather than two different ones. Note that adjustments at school do not require a diagnosis, and a young person who is visibly struggling can be supported by the school while an assessment is still pending.

Yes, by secure video anywhere in Australia, and a good many teenagers find it easier than sitting opposite an adult in an unfamiliar room. In-person sessions are available in Bankstown.