The Partnering Approach

Reset, Rebuild and Reimagine...
your relationships, capacity and connection
to yourself and your child
with Suzanne Alderson's Partnering Approach

The Partnering Approach Course guides and supports you through this compassionate, connective and proven approach
and helps you support your child through poor mental health
Starts 17th April 2025

Sign Up Here

What if you could push a reset button on your parenting? What would you change? What would you do differently? What would you like to gain?

The Partnering Approach is an opportunity in adversity to reset, rebuild, and reimagine your relationship with your child

Hello 👋 I'm Suzanne Alderson, author of the book 'Never Let Go - How to Parent Your Child Through Mental illness', founder of the community and charity Parenting Mental Health and fierce believer in the power parents have when they are properly supported and seen.

First and foremost, I'm a parent - one who found herself in the midst of unexpected adversity in 2015 when my 14 year old daughter attempted suicide, the world as I knew it crumbled. The truths I believed in disappeared. And the rules that had been our anchors changed completely.

We needed to find a new way forward if we were to get through this extraordinary experience.

Partnering (Not Parenting) became our new rules - a new way to approach our daughter’s experience - and our life. We couldn’t play by the same rules, we had to make up our own, in order to keep us all connected and safe. Partnering helped me to support my daughter, to build connection where it had been challenged, forge a bond in the most desperate of situations, and help her to a resilient recovery. It helped us to manage the guilt, the blame, the exhaustion and the fear. And it has helped thousands of other parents, too.

I created the first Partnering Approach course in 2019 to support other parents like me, and possibly you, through this time with resources, connection and community. If it speaks to you, you'd be so welcome to join us.

The 3 Step Partnering Approach

The Partnering Approach is a compassionate augmentation of your existing parenting skills, with 3 steps to help
build emotional safety, capacity and trust when your child's mental health is poor.

(And please, don't worry - there's no shame, blame or guilt allowed here! )

RESET:Step Down

RESET:Step Down

Change the dynamic in your home using 'Step Down' - from your emotions, judgement, experience and authority. It sounds like letting go, but it's actually the fastest way to reconnect. In the course we look at your capacity to cope, ways you can create significant shifts through your own behaviour change, how to manage your expectations and assumptions, how to communicate better, and how to wrestle your fear to the floor!

REBUILD:Stand Beside

REBUILD:Stand Beside

Stand Beside your child through this extraordinary experience with compassion and hope to rebuild your connection and emotional safety to lay foundations for a relationship for life. This adversity can, amazingly, offer us opportunities for understanding, advocacy and agency. In the course, we explore building trust and patience, redefining and understanding boundaries, and how we can reflect on the losses and the gains of what we face.

REIMAGINE:Travel Together

REIMAGINE:Travel Together

When our child's mental health declines, and maybe they can't engage in the world as we or they expected, or things just feel so different and heavy it can be hard to see that, within the adversity, there is opportunity to build a life that really serves them - and us - if we can manage our emotions and reframe the future that hasn't happened yet to Travel Together. In the course, we reflect on how we can open up new and often unexpected pathways, and encourage a sense of agency in our child - and ourselves!

What is included in the course price?

The course costs £250 for 12 months' access and runs over 8 weeks

8 weeks of Helpful, Thoughtful and Supportive Resources
8 weeks of Helpful, Thoughtful and Supportive Resources
Join Regular Q&A Sessions, Online Meets <br> & Guest Speaker Slots
Join Regular Q&A Sessions, Online Meets
& Guest Speaker Slots
Be Part of a Supportive, Safe Community to Connect with Others
Be Part of a Supportive, Safe Community to Connect with Others

But shouldn't I parent HARDER when my child's mental health declines and things are really challenging for my family?

In short, no.
When your child's mental health is poor, it changes everything - how we live, how we love and how we see the past, present and future. From the dynamics of communication and possibility to expectations and beliefs to our own ability to think straight, we can become consumed by trying to help our child to wellness.

In our haste to help and with a focus on fixing - because that's what us parents do, isn't it? - we can find our homes become a battlefield and our heads are quickly filled with all the what ifs, conflicting information and overpowering feelings like guilt, shame and fear. Our behaviours, while done to try and help, can often lead to a greater sense of disconnection and we can wonder if we'll ever recognise our child - or our family -again. What is needed is more patience, time, and emotional safety - for us and for our child.

The Partnering Approach is a compassionate, proven approach for parents of children with poor mental health that helps reframe the challenges and offers pragmatic and practical tools to help us understand how to reconnect, communicate and build trust in a deeply challenging time.

The course helps deal with the grief, shame and distress we experience having a child with depression, anxiety or other mental health condition, while helping them to a place where they feel emotionally safe, seen and heard by us.

But this is most certainly not about perfect parenting! That doesn't exist. This is about using the challenge you face as an opportunity to reflect, to set down some behaviours and beliefs, and to move forward with greater clarity, connection and hope, and to transform your relationship with yourself, your child and your family. And we do that in a space that is safe, compassionate and hopeful.

Partnering is about moving to a place of empowerment - it's not about letting your child 'get on with it' or not having boundaries. The course adds to your existing parenting style to meet the unique challenges that your child's poor mental health brings, building connection and change at a time when you feel there is no fix and often, there is no hope.

And Partnering isn't about changing your child; it's not a therapy or quick fix. It's a powerful, relational approach to understanding more about what your whole family is going through as well as the challenges and opportunities this adversity brings for something different that works for you and your family. It gives you the understanding, the tools, and the support to begin to calm, connect and converse with your child.
Join the course - pay over 3 months

The course Curriculum

The 8 Week Partnering Approach Course Curricuclum

37 lessons
12 Months' Access
Self study at your own pace
Regular Zoom Sessions (all recorded) & Private Peer Community
One payment of £250

Welcome from Suzanne
Tech Questions
Self Care and Burnout Prevention
Understanding the Curve & Nervous System
Understanding your child’s reality
A Day in The Life...
Mindset Magic
How the brain works under stress
Understanding Developmental Stages
The Power of Self-Forgiveness
Step Down to Reset
Step Down - Emotion
Step Down - Experience
Step Down - Authority
Step Down - Judgement
Behaviour as communication
Active Listening Skills
Communicate with Compassion
Expectations & Assumptions
Parental Guilt
Grief
Judgement
Stand Beside to bond and build
Building Patience, Building Capacity
Boundaries part one
Building Trust
Consistency
Encouraging Agency
Boundaries part two
Travel Together to tend and befriend
Advocacy without burnout
Recovery is not a straight line
What to do if you're stuck
Dealing with Friends and Family
Time, change and acceptance
Hope and Grief
Creating a North Star for your family

The next 8 week Partnering course begins 17th April 2025

Access the audio and video trainings week by week online and via the Thinkific app on your phone or tablet, and complete them in your own time, at your own pace.

There are regular bonus Live sessions throughout the course and you get support from a private community, filled with other parents who get what you're going through and are there to help support you and offer hope, understanding and strength.

The course fee of £250 covers all resources for 12 months.

Frequently Asked Questions

The course materials take approximately 2-3 hours a week, but you can learn at your pace. There is no pressure to do everything each week - there are lots of opportunities to connect because we know that life is busy and hard. Everything is accessible via Thinkific so you can listen wherever you want to and as you get 12 months' access, you can go at your own pace and revisit parts of the course as you and your situation changes. 

You have 12 months' continuous access to the course resources as well as the bonuses - the community and the regular sessions on Zoom when the course runs.

Yes, absolutely! It's better when there is a cohesive and aligned approach. 

If you want to add your partner or a primary caregiver, please email partneringnotparenting at gmail dot com after you have signed up with their name and email and we can get them signed up on Thikific - and there's no charge for them to join.  

Access to a laptop or phone, some time to watch or listen, and an open mind! 

The course materials are accessible on Thinkific, a learning management platform that houses each week's resources. 

The regular Q&As are held on Zoom so a phone, tablet or laptop and internet connection are necessary to join. 

The first event is our Welcome Zoom on Saturday 19th April at 11am UK time for 1 hour - 1hour 15mins. 

The other course Zooms are on: 

Week 2 on Tuesday, 22nd April at 5pm UK time 

Week 3 on Thursday, 1st May at 11am UK time 

Week 4 on Tuesday, 6th May at 5pm UK time 

Week 5 on Tuesday, 13th May at 11am UK time 

Week 6 on Thursday, 22nd May at 5pm UK time 

Week 7 on Tuesday, 27th May at 11am UK time 

Week 8 on Thursday, 5th June at 5pm UK time 

Each week, you'll get an email with details of the week's event, whether it's a Q&A, open connection session or a guest speaker. 

There's no need to speak if you don't want to  or to have your camera on for any of the sessions - sometimes it's just good to be with people who get it. And don’t worry if you can’t make it. Every session is recorded and you can watch it back via Thinkific the next day. 

We don't offer refunds as a matter of course as the course materials are all accessible online so you can learn and connect on your terms and timescale. 

The Partnering Approach and the course are not dependent on any diagnosis. Coming from a place of compassion and understanding that all behaviour is communication, the approach and course is about you and how you might support your child and yourself. 

Lots of parents of neurodivergent children, of those who are traumatised, undiagnosed, and/or can't go to school or leave their rooms have taken the course. This is about you, not your child, but when and how you change, things change for them too.  

Parents of children leaving primary school all the way up to adult children in their 20s, 30s and beyond have benefitted from the course and approach. 

As the course is about YOU, it can benefit your family dynamic at any age - not to mention other relationships

Suzanne does offer paid 1-1 support and mentoring. She has some availability for 1-1 paid sessions from May 2025 and a small group coaching program launching in June 2025. Please email: 

suzanne at suzannealderson dot com 

for more information on either of these. 

Sadly, all her pro bono mentoring places are full until late August 2025. If you would like to be considered for a place, please email suzanne at suzannealderson dot com. Thank you.  

Sorry - fixing isn't something we can (or should) do, even though we may want to! 

What the Partnering Approach and course can offer is a safe space to reflect, practical skills to shift the dynamic in your home, and connection to others who get it and can support you through the worry, fear and exhaustion. 

Back in 2015, when my daughter was in crisis (and so we were as a family) I felt so alone, so judged and so helpless. One night, sitting on my daughter's bedroom floor (on suicide watch) I made a commitment to support other parents like me. There was absolutely no support for us, only judgement and expectation, and I didn't want anyone else to feel the desperation and distress I did. I knew that when I felt supported and safe, I showed up differently, and that underneath what school and the medical professionals saw, there was a very real, very valid human response going on - in my daughter and in me. And to explore that would give us all a freedom, space and peace. Before that though, wading through the adversity would challenge us and take enormous strength and energy to continue.

I set up Parenting Mental Health in 2016 to connect parents and I created the Partnering Approach in 2017 to support and skill them. I absolutely believe in the power we parents have to make change in our own lives and in our family's, but we need support too and that's why the course is such an important part of my work, and why you get 12 months' access because this is an exploration, a practice and a process to go through.

I hope that the course and connection brings you...

  • a safe, judgement free space to explore your responses and emotions
  • skills and insights to connect with your child and yourself
  • permission, connection and opportunity to begin to build your emotional capacity
  • a sense of community and hope
  • a realisation that you are strong and powerful - but human - and you deserve to be supported through this time

Will you join us on the next course?

We begin on April 17th - for 12 months of resources, connection and community

If you want a different way of approaching the challenges in your family, are ready to commit to the work, and want to learn in a compassionate and supportive community of parents who get it, Partnering Not Parenting is a comprehensive, compassionate course that offers you a deeper understanding of what's going on and how you might change it.
Join and pay over 4 months

What parents say about the
Partnering Approach & Course

E

Parent of young adult son

I can't recommend this course enough.
It is mind blowing. It is informative, in depth,
interactive, it makes you think and reflect but the most important thing is IT WORKS.
I wanted, needed to change as I love my son and I yearned for connection. I actively participated and listened to the course content and began partnering my son. This course has helped me find and build CONNECTION again. I can't praise it enough.

A

Parent of 2 children

I love Partnering! Thank you for giving me the tools and the confidence to partner my kids. J had an unbelievably positive first couple of days of 6th form but became hugely overwhelmed and had a big wobble on Tuesday night. She was able to communicate effectively with me the extent of her anxiety and we talked it all through. After a day at home to reset yesterday and some adaptations, she’s back in today!

N

Parent to early teen daughter

I did the course last year after spending years searching for and reading about approaches that might help my daughter. Partnering not Parenting is the only approach that has worked.
I can honestly say it has been life changing and quite possibly life saving for my family.
What also sets it apart is the fact that it isn’t just about parenting a child with poor MH; it is also a journey of therapeutic self discovery and self compassion for us as parents. It is also about connection - with our child, ourselves and others who are sharing a similar ‘normal’.
It can be hard work at times, but you absolutely will not regret signing up for it.

D

Parent of teenage son

Yesterday evening he asked if I'd like to eat together. I played it calm and simply said, yes sure. He suggested we watch a show while we ate and I went along with it. Tonight he came down again to eat with me, and watch another episode! He's not been prepared to eat with me for years. All thanks to Partnering.

A

Parent of 4

Having read Suzanne’s book, 'Never Let Go: How To Parent Your Child Through Mental Illness', and embraced the Parenting Mental Health Facebook group, I joined the course thinking it would be an extension of the book. How wrong I was, it is SO much more than that!!! You think you are joining with it being about your child as the focus, but it is a course that looks at you predominantly. You can choose to dig as deep as you wish, and go at your own pace, share with others in the group or not – there’s no pressure.

A

Parent of teenage son

The Partnering not Parenting course is worth so much more than the money you pay to do it. The resources are so well thought out, extensive and just full of empowering knowledge, education, and insight. There is constant support within the group and Suzanne is always at hand too, and so approachable. I think this course would be valuable for anyone, even those without a child with a mental illness. Fantastic course and couldn’t recommend it more highly. The course has not only helped me in my parenting role but even more as a person, for which I am eternally grateful.

L

Parent to early teen son

Partnering Not Parenting has revolutionised how we speak to, deal with, view, manage, frame, perceive, support our son's life/responses/views/actions.....the 3 of us have lived pretty much in each others' pockets for 4 years straight.....our situation has improved beyond measure BECAUSE of PNP.

J

Parent of 2

Hubby and I did this course and it changed our house and especially my hubby in how he would respond or react to our teen, well worth doing and great to hear others stories and know you're not alone

G

Parent of teenage son and daughter

Suzanne Alderson's Partnering Not Parenting approach really does work. Not just with kids but husbands too!!! Since reading Never Let Go and putting Partnering into practice our life is so different. My husband is taking initiative and getting involved in supporting our child's MH recovery. #gratefulgratefulGRATEFUL

First Name

Type of person

L

Parent to early teen son

Partnering Not Parenting has revolutionised how we speak to, deal with, view, manage, frame, perceive, support our son's life/responses/views/actions.....the 3 of us have lived pretty much in each others' pockets for 4 years straight.....our situation has improved beyond measure BECAUSE of PNP.

M

Parent of 1

Just wanted to say thank you for the course Suzanne, it’s given me a new perspective on how I now parent / partner my child. The course came at the right time, we were a very broken family with lots of issues, lots of burnout and sadness.

K

Parent of 1

It changed our lives in such a positive way. It challenges our perspectives but in a positive, helpful way. It doesn’t instantly fix our problems but it helps us navigate through them to rebuild our relationships in a different way and help us to help our young people. It’s the best thing I’ve done.