Westmead Feelings Program 1: Parent Materials

Westmead Feelings Program 1 (WFP 1) is an evidence-based clinical intervention package developed by The Children's Hospital at Westmead, and designed specifically to teach emotional and social skills to children with autism spectrum disorder and mild intellectual disability.

As ‘emotion coaches’ at home, parents have a central role in helping their children to better understand their feelings, and to develop their ability to manage their responses to not-so-good feelings.

WFP 1 sessions for parents will enrich their understanding of their children’s emotions (through recognising their body signs, language and behavior), and will allow parents to assist their children in developing the language to label their own and other’s feelings.

In creating a supportive environment that promotes safe sharing of emotional experiences, parents can scaffold their children’s ability to understand emotions, their problem-solving and perspective-taking skills, and their ability to manage emotions, leading to measurable improvements in emotional and social skills and wellbeing at home, in the community and beyond.

The WFP 1 Parent Materials include:

• a Parent Handbook, with weekly updates on what children are learning in their feelings group, and ways parents can support them as their emotion coach at home
• A4 and pocket-sized sets of Feelings Strength Bars, describing different intensities of happy, sad, worried and angry feelings, to help children understand that there are various intensities of emotion and to prompt conversations about emotions
• a set of reusable problem-solving, perspective-taking, combined and Feelings Control Kit worksheets, to help children solve problems and develop empathy for the people around them.

Each family requires their own set of parent materials.