- General information about child anxiety
- Personal stories
- About the Child & Adolescent Anxiety Clinic
- Information for Referrers & Teachers
Information for Referrers
What is MUARU?
The Macquarie University Anxiety Research Unit (MUARU) was established in 1993 as a specialist clinical research unit dedicated to furthering research into the nature and treatment of child, adolescent and adult anxiety disorders. MUARU is affiliated with the Department of Psychology at Macquarie University, and its director Professor Ron Rapee is an internationally renowned researcher in the area of anxiety disorders. The unit offers state of the art assessment and treatment of child and adult anxiety disorders based on internationally recognised research that has been conducted by our unit and other research groups.
The clinic is also a training facility for intern clinical psychologists, under the supervision of clinical psychologists who have extensive clinical and research experience in the area of anxiety disorders.
Services Offered as part of the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Clinic
All treatments that we offer at the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Clinic aim to teach young people ways of managing their anxiety. They are practical, and common sense and they do not involve any medication. Most of the programs require parent involvement and will also require practice exercises to be completed at home for full benefits to be achieved.
Suitability for our programs is determined during a thorough assessment process that will involve the young person and their parents. The young person must be identified as having anxiety as their principal difficulty to be included in one of our programs.
Research
Participating in our research programs allows children access to cutting edge treatment for anxiety, at a cost considerably less than that charged by private psychologists. We can keep costs down because we are funded by the Australian Government to conduct research into anxiety in children. Therefore, participants are asked to assist us by filling in questionnaires and coming in for assessments, even after their treatment has finished. This is because our research investigates the long-term effectiveness of the treatments we provide. We also ask families to participate in some of our additional research studies into the nature and causes of anxiety.
Private
We also offer a private treatment service for those families who can afford to pay the unsubsidised cost of therapy, and who chose not to commit themselves to the research aspects of our programmes. This service is run by our clinical affiliates, all of whom have experience in child anxiety, and is dependent on their availability.
What to Consider Before Making a Referral
- For the research programs, the young person's principal difficulty must be an anxiety disorder. Young people who have another diagnoses, for example Oppositional Defiant Disorder, are only eligible if the anxiety is causing more interference than the ODD at the time of the assessment. For private services, although the focus remains on anxiety, other difficulties can be addressed.
- Our treatment programs require the involvement of parents, and therefore parents must be willing to co-operate with the assessment and treatment process. This will include attendance at interviews and therapy sessions (all sessions for children and several sessions for adolescents), as well as completing questionnaires.
- Both the parents and young people must have a good grasp of the English language. No interpretation service is available, however provisions can be made if families are able to provide their own interpreter (e.g. another family member).
How To Make a Referral
For the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Clinic, a referral is made by a parent phoning the clinic and completing a telephone intake. This takes approximately 15 minutes, and parents will need to be able to give us some information on their child's current problems. From here they will be placed on a waitlist until there is an initial assessment time available. This can vary from 2 to 8 weeks depending on demand at the time.
Further Information
If you are interested in obtaining additional information on our programmes or would like to receive parent brochures please contact the clinic by telephoning (02) 9850-8711 or email us
Information for Teachers
Children often display anxiety in the classroom or playground, or may worry excessively about activities that are occurring at school. About 1 in 10 children have difficulties managing anxiety but they can be difficult to identify as they are often very well behaved and seemingly well adjusted. Despite appearances these children spend a significant amount of time worrying and avoiding situations which they are afraid of - the consequences of this can be sleeping difficulties, high levels of stress, physical symptoms such as stomach and head aches, and missing out on age appropriate activities. Ultimately these children are at a higher risk of later developing debilitating anxiety disorders and depression, and are less likely to live up to their natural potential. Features of Anxious Children and Adolescents in the Classroom- Exceptionally well behaved eg never in trouble, always returns forms promptly, may appear bossy when it comes to getting peers to stick to rules
- Asks many unnecessary questions or never asks questions
- Gets upset when a mistake is made or if there is a change of routine eg sports day, substitute teacher
- Does not or slow to complete work because they get stuck tying to get the right answer or a perfectly presented page
- A loner or restricted to a small group of safe people (who may be younger or older)
- Often hesitant to answer questions and rarely volunteers information in class
- Becomes sick when performances are necessary (may be absent)
- May blush, shake, or mumble when answering questions or giving presentations
- May be disobedient to avoid feared situation (particularly adolescents)
- Becomes distressed if a particular friend is not at school
- Difficulty separating from parents at beginning of day or clingy when a parent is at school
- Worries towards end of day about parents being there to collect them
- Difficulty settling at the beginning of each term or perhaps each Monday (worry reported by parents may be only evidence of this)
- Avoids unfamiliar situations, may become sick, not turn up or endure with significant distress (may only hear this from parents) eg school camps or excursions
- Avoids eye contact with teachers or peers
- Appears unhappy, can always find a potential danger in a situation
Helping Anxious Children and Adolescents in the Classroom
- Provide support and encouragement but without too much fuss eg "I can see that you are scared but just try the best you can", then walk away (be tactful with adolescents)
- Reward non-anxious behaviour and ignore anxious behaviours, eg reward a child who answers a question voluntarily for the first time but ignore a child who begins to get weepy when they have to change classrooms
- Don't fall into the trap of providing a lot of reassurance. Tactfully ask them what they think the situation might be and only then provide correction if necessary, eg to the question "is this right?" you may respond "what have you done so far?" rather than just saying "yes" - try to encourage them to work it out for themselves
- Encourage risk taking in small steps by (with the child's help) establishing a set of challenges to help them overcome a particular fear eg answering a question when in a pair, then a small group then a larger group then in front of the class, reward each attempt
- Provide opportunities for developing independence, eg get them to run messages for you
- Ask them an occasional "easy" question but do not push them if they do not answer
- Allow them to experience the natural consequences of their fears
- Do not treat anxious behaviour as naughtiness - they are not being deliberately difficult
- Discuss your perceptions with parents; is this child also worrying at home? If so seek help.
- Encourage help-seeking (eg school counsellor or specialists) and destigmatise the issue
When further help is needed...
- When a child is struggling to manage anxiety consider referral to one of the following
- School Counsellor
- Local Community Health Centre
- The Child and Adolescent Anxiety Clinic click here.
