What is S.P.A.C.E.?

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S.P.A.C.E. (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) is a parent based treatment for children with anxiety and/or OCD. Research shows that the SPACE treatment is as effective as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but the child doesn’t participate in the sessions - the parent(s) do! Through the treatment program, you will help your child by adjusting how you parent specifically for anxiety so that your child can:

• Develop coping strategies

• Reduce anxiety

• Tolerate anxious feelings rather than avoid them

• Build their self-esteem

• Develop emotion regulation skills

• Become more resilient

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What happens in SPACE treatment?

Parents who participate in SPACE will learn skills and tools to help their child overcome anxiety, OCD or related problems.

The treatment focuses on changes that parents can make to their own behaviour; they do not need to make their child change. 

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The two main changes that parents learn to make in SPACE treatment are to respond more supportively to their anxious child and to reduce the accommodations they have been making to the child symptoms.

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Some of the main anxiety problems treated with SPACE include:

• Separation anxiety

• Social anxiety

• Generalized anxiety

• Fears and phobias

• Panic disorder and Agoraphobia

• Selective mutism

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder