Sunday, September 22, 2024

Free and low-cost online subclinical services for minors

I have begun creating this directory. Please feel free to add more resources, and please share in relevant spaces. 

From the intro: This is intended to be a listing of affordable online subclinical services serving those under 18. The intention here is to provide resources for families whose child's needs are not currently at the level of requiring medical therapies (or who have financial difficulty in accessing these), but are higher than requiring no formal support. 

Resources should focus on those provided by folks with professional degrees or connection to a mainstream clinical or social services organization, as the intention here is that families are able to assure schools and pediatricians that their child is receiving appropriate services. 

While the owner of this resource places high value on lived experience and community-based healing over "evidence-based practices,"* resources here should be free of blatant pseudoscientific approaches and must be trauma-informed, antiracist, queer/transgender-inclusive, neurodiversity-affirming, disability-positive, fat-positive, and so forth. Religious resources may be included, provided they are truly inclusive, including of those who express skepticism toward their faith background or may be looking to leave it. No ABA providers may be included, unless they publicly and consistently identify as someone who has left the field due to its problematic nature. 

*Research is important, and I constantly seek it out and cite it – or cite that no research has been done that adequately takes into account the intersections at play in the situation at hand. The majority of research, particularly that which is used in recommending and funding treatment approaches, reflects ableism and cultural bias. We absolutely should be looking at well-designed studies that are done or advised by people of the same demographics as those being studied. "Evidence-based practice" literature usually isn't this. 

Financial disclosure: One of my own LGBTQ+/neurodivergent youth spaces is included. I do make money off of this, though you can see based on the prices that this was not my primary goal in creating the space. 

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