TalkToAmy Services

TalkToAmy Services

15-Minute Consultation Session - FREE

Step 1: A 15-minute Consultation Session

This session allows you to get a taste of the type of service TalkToAmy provides. We have a discussion about what your looking for and explain how our service can help, in relation to your specific needs.

More specifically it is a voice notes conversation (or call) with Amy, where you will talk about:

  • Why you’re reaching out to talk to Amy?

  • What kind of support are you looking for?

  • Whether you have attended a mental health service before? What worked for you and what didn’t?

  • What session structure you are wanting your sessions to be in?

  • Your availability?

  • Provide and briefly talk through the TalkToAmy Service Agreement Form?

  • Any Questions or concerns you may have?

TalkToAmy 45-Minute Peer Support Session - $76

TalkToAmy is a listening service for women. It strictly aims to improve female mental health by providing unconditional positive peer support to act as a protective factor, promoting long-term cognitive resilience. Our peer support sessions allow young women to discusses their everyday struggles. This can include dilemmas like school stress, family stress, friendship/relationship problems, university stress, self-confidence struggles, body image struggles, intrusive thoughts and/or athletic performance stress.

When this service uses the title peer supporter, it’s referring to the action of standing side by side with the client as they are experiencing psychological distress. Providing positive long-term encouragement, empathy, compassion, and safety to the client in a non-judgmental environment.

We focus on the friendship between the client and the peer supporter. Techniques like unconditional positive encouragement, positive reframing, echoing conflicting perspectives, empathetic reflective work and non-judgmental summarisation is how we inspire resilience and action.

Female mental health is unique and so are the strategies to best maintain it. We conduct our service in a way that is understood by young women, increasing the likelihood of retention and action.

Different Session Structures

Online:

Coffee Chats:

Walk and Talk:

*Based in Perth, WA

   

More Information About Sessions

  • Monday 7am - 6pm

    Tuesday 7am - 6pm

    Wednesday 7am - 6pm

    Thursday 7am - 6pm

    Friday 7am - 6pm

    Saturday 8am - 4pm

    Sunday Close

    • TalkToAmy does not accept sessions for clients 13 years or younger, couples or family sessions.

    • In-person sessions are preferred in order to get the most out of the TalkToAmy service.

    • Both coffee chats and walk and talks are completed in a location that is most convenient and comfortable for the client. All security information has been made available on the About Me page.

    • Our scheduling service, Fresha, will ask for your card information to sign up. Nothing will be charged to your card until a session has been completed.

    • You must cancel your session 24 hours before your session starts otherwise you will be charged the full fee of a 45-minute session. (For Example, if your session is at 4 pm on Monday, you must cancel the session before 4 pm on the Sunday.)

  • As a result of TalkToAmy’s communication with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, TalkToAmy follows The National Safety and Quality Mental Health Standards for Community Managed Organisations.

    TalkToAmy also goes to great lengths to implement the User Guide for Acute and Community Mental Health Service standards, standards set by the NSQHS.

    Note Taking: We refer to the Ethical Note Taking and Record Keeping Guide created by the Australian Association of Psychologists Inc, when collecting and storing our clients personal information.

    Strategies and Concepts: TalkToAmy only shares strategies and concepts (online) that are supported by recent and peer-reviewed research or professionals in the relevant field. Regular sources of information include the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; clinical practice guidelines, American Psychological Association, Australian Psychological Society and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

    • Clients are allowed to reach out to their support worker between the hours of 7 am to 5 pm to book another session, move their session or change the location of their next session. 

    • If clients are wanting to talk about their mental well-being, they must book a session.

      Exceptions are allowed, if a mutual arrangement has been made with your peer support worker, allowing you to reach out outside of session time.

Why Have We Made This Service

It has become increasingly obvious that mental health services are under a growing burden, with a staggering 73.5% of psychological services maintaining waiting lists. To address the increasing demand from patients, innovative mental health care models are urgently required.

A significant void exists between the accessibility of a lifeline call and the affordability of traditional therapy, which often charges upwards of $200 per hour. In response to this unmet need, we have introduced TalkToAmy to bridge this gap. Our service places a strong emphasis on the relationship between client and their peer supporter. In traditional therapy, it is the relationship between the client and the therapist that determines the effectiveness of psychological treatments. As articulated by Professor John C. Norcross, PhD, ABPP, and chair of the APA task force at the University of Scranton, “the therapeutic relationship is as powerful, if not more powerful, than the particular treatment method a therapist is using,".

We have extracted this crucial element and built a mental health service centred around it. Dedicating ourselves to establishing connections, offering unwavering support, and engaging in active listening. It is our belief that one's interconnectedness with others plays a more significant role in predicting mental well-being than their history of adversity, as articulated by Dr. Bruce D. Perry.