Teenage Toolbox

Searching for mental health support for a teenager or young adult can feel overwhelming.

 

Not only do we feel conflicted watching a child suffer, but getting the right help can be equally frustrating. Often, what we witness in the system doesn't resonate with what we intuitively feel is right! ​As mental health services are stretched to the limit and with waitlists at capacity, parents are becoming increasingly discouraged by an ever-increasing focus on the pathologising of their child's behaviour, and the medicating of symptoms.​ 

They find that little support is available that offers a more holistic response.​

 

We've been there - We understand!​

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With over 35 years of behaviour experience working in prisons, schools, and private practice, Sue O'Callaghan saw a desperate need to provide a more integrated and trauma-informed therapeutic service for both parents and teenagers.

 

​Founding Teenage Toolbox in 2013, Sue (mum of four) believes our young people are having to navigate basic survival through excessive stress and trauma, while also having to adapt to a rapidly changing, uncertain, and disconnected world. As a consequence, their nervous symptoms have become progressively dysregulated into maladaptive, but survival behaviour.

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With consistently high success rates for self-harm, Sue prioritises supporting young people to develop the internal safety, regulation skills, and relational stability needed for sustainable recovery and improved mental health outcomes.

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"If you find something that works with extreme behaviour in prisons, you know it will work in the community!"

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Adult and Couples Work

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Having helped thousands of teenagers through a personal struggle with mental health over the past 12 years, Sue has gone on to develop a highly successful Adult and Couples Programme, where broken relationships have found safety, calm, and restoration.

 

Drawing on the principles of Relational Life Therapy (RLT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), her unique, intensive and experiential approach ​​​combines trauma-responsive psychoeducation with practical strategies that address the deeper emotional wounds driving conflict. This allows couples to move beyond blame and reactivity into mutual accountability, emotional safety, and relational intimacy.

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At Teenage Toolbox we have the depth of experience and measured results to offer New Zealanders (and families worldwide) a unique facility that you won’t find elsewhere.

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