Specialist Training & Professional Development

Whānau and Caregiver Training

Understanding your child and finding support that fits

You know your child in ways that a course or assessment cannot capture. MindKind training starts with that knowledge and helps you make sense of what you notice every day.

Perhaps mornings are exhausting, instructions need repeating, changes bring distress, or your child manages something one day and struggles the next. You may also see wonderful abilities that other people overlook. Our training helps you explore these patterns and work out what support fits your child.

Using the MindKind Brain Domains Framework, we explore ten connected areas of everyday functioning, including regulation, sensory experiences, attention, understanding, memory, planning, flexibility, communication, relationships and daily living skills.

We explain these in plain language, using situations familiar to whānau and caregivers.

What you will learn

Our training helps you:
• Recognise your child’s strengths and the conditions that help them succeed.
• Explore what may be making a situation difficult, without jumping to conclusions.
• Notice early signs of overwhelm and respond with support that protects connection.
• Make instructions, routines and transitions easier to understand and manage.
• Use pictures, demonstrations, reminders, visible steps and practical assistance.
• Match expectations to what your child can manage in that moment.
• Explain helpful approaches to school staff, respite workers and others.
• Review what helps and adjust when something is not working.

Learning through everyday life

We work through situations such as getting ready for school, leaving a preferred activity, following instructions or coping when plans change.

Through guided discussion and practical activities, you learn to recognise the demands within a situation and explore different ways of supporting it.

For example, a difficult morning might involve remembering several instructions, uncomfortable clothing and feeling rushed. We explore those possibilities, then practise making the routine clearer, adjusting the environment and providing the right level of help.

You learn how to build a practical picture of your child: their strengths, how they communicate, early signs of overload, what makes a good day and which supports are worth continuing.

Why choose MindKind

MindKind gives you a repeatable way to work through the situations that matter to your whānau. You learn how to choose and adapt strategies for your child, and how to check whether they help.

Our approach considers overlapping needs associated with autism, ADHD, FASD and differences in learning, communication and sensory processing. We also consider trauma and current circumstances, while respecting that these have different implications for support.

Practical adjustments can be explored while a child is awaiting assessment or has no confirmed diagnosis.

Your child’s voice and your knowledge of them belong in this process. Our aim is greater understanding, more workable routines and support that protects dignity, connection and participation.

Enquire about whānau and caregiver training.

Professional training and development

Turning neurodevelopmental understanding into everyday practice

MindKind professional training gives teams a structured way to understand individual support needs, adapt their practice and review what changes for the person.

It is designed for people working in education, care, disability and community services, mentoring, health, youth justice and other support settings. Applications are considered within each participant’s role, responsibilities and professional scope.

Using the MindKind Brain Domains Framework, participants explore how a person’s strengths and support needs interact with the task, the environment and their current state.

Diagnosis remains important information. The framework helps practitioners translate that information, alongside observation and the person’s own perspective, into practical support decisions.

What participants will learn

Participants learn to:
• Describe observable actions and context, separating observation from interpretation.
• Understand the ten functional domains and how several may contribute to one situation.
• Identify strengths, interests and successful conditions that can guide support.
• Examine task demands, communication, sensory load, pace and predictability.
• Choose strategies that address the likely barrier.
• Develop an individual functional support profile with the person and whānau wherever possible.
• Communicate clear support approaches across staff, settings and services.
• Review changes in participation, communication, wellbeing, safety and the assistance required.
• Recognise when specialist assessment or another professional pathway is needed.

A practical method for everyday decisions

The MindKind Method provides a consistent sequence:
See → Notice → Map → Understand → Adapt → Support → Observe → Review.

Participants practise this process through case discussion, guided activities and support planning. They examine what the person is being asked to manage, identify missing information and redesign the support. They then decide what to observe and when to review it.

For example, a learner leaving an activity after spoken instructions may need a different response depending on whether the main barrier is comprehension, memory, sensory load, distress or a combination.

Participants practise considering these possibilities and selecting adjustments that can be reviewed.

What teams can take into their work

The training develops a shared language for understanding needs and making support decisions.

Participants practise moving from a broad instruction such as “provide more support” to a specific action: demonstrate the first step, provide a visual sequence, allow processing time or change the setting.

Teams learn to record what they tried, why they chose it, what happened and what should change next. This provides a practical basis for handovers, coordinated plans and conversations with whānau and specialist services.

Why choose MindKind

MindKind’s focus is the link between understanding and action. Its ten-domain structure brings overlapping needs into one practical decision process, while retaining condition-specific knowledge and clear professional boundaries.

Strengths are part of that process. Participants investigate when things go well and use that information to design support. They also examine the environment and the demands placed on the person.

For organisations, the value is a framework staff can practise together, use to explain their decisions and revisit when an approach is not helping.

Our aim is more accessible services, clearer support plans and more consistent practice.

Enquire about professional training for your team.

Our Approach to Training

Our training for whānau, caregivers and professionals uses the MindKind Transdiagnostic Neurodiverse Framework.

Transdiagnostic means looking across diagnostic boundaries to understand the person’s strengths, challenges and everyday support needs, while recognising the important differences between conditions and individual experiences.

The framework helps turn that understanding into practical ways to communicate, adapt environments and provide support that fits the person.

Every participant leaves with the MindKind Transdiagnostic Neurodiverse Framework Manual, a practical resource to refer to and use beyond the training.