After years of experience working with people of all ages with intellectual disabilities and emotional challenges, one thing stood out to Alisha DiMasi – the importance of family.

Family is at the heart of all of the services DiMasi provides at Well Within in Lyndeborough, a new venture she has launched to help empower families with members who have mental health issues.

DiMasi received her undergraduate degree in occupational sciences and graduate degree in occupational therapy from UNH in 2011. Shortly after, she moved to the Monadnock region, where she worked at the Crotched Mountain School, serving students with disabilities whose home districts couldn’t serve them. 

After her time at Crotched Mountain, she worked in the Milford Public School system for several years while also working as an occupational therapist in assisted-living facilities.

“I really have this full spectrum of experiences, but something that wove through all of them was how important the family was, whether it was with a child or taking care of an aging adult,” DiMasi said. “The family having the information and knowing what’s going on is really the most-important thing, because they’re the ones that are present.”

DiMasi explained that it's family members who are most knowledgeable when it comes to a member’s specific needs, so it falls to them to coordinate care among different providers.

“They’re the ones who are seeing all the different pieces - and the way our system works, those pieces are usually not talking to each other. It’s not the most-functional system, but it’s what we have going on right now,” she said. 

After taking a couple years off of her work to take care of her two children, DiMasi realized she wanted to return to her work as an occupational therapist, but to offer a specialized service to help empower families who are caring for a loved one with mental or emotional disabilities. 

“All of my services are under that big umbrella of family empowerment, because most families have what they need within them, and I see my role as helping them find it and bring it forward,” she said. 

DiMasi offers several services out of Well Within, including empowered parent coaching and what she refers to as “full-circle services.” 

Empowered parent coaching helps families provide comprehensive care and support to children with intellectual disabilities or emotional challenges. It begins with an in-depth questionnaire that DiMasi uses to gather information about the child, their family and any relevant health information she feels is necessary. She brings this information to the introductory call, where she works with the parents to learn more about their specific situation and develop some tentative goals for their time together. 

“It’s really tailored to the family and what they are hoping to change,” DiMasi said. “I think that’s really important for this kind of coaching. We’re going to make some specific goals, and that helps to prioritize our time together.”

After a session, DiMasi emphasizes the importance of the family leaving with actionable strategies they can start using right away.

“It’s really an experiment - we might need to tweak that, or maybe not,” she said. “Is it working? Is it not? What really resonated with the child? I’m hoping to offer really practical strategies that families can start using immediately. 

According to DiMasi and the Well Within website, an empowered parent uses curiosity to explore what is happening during a difficult moment for the child, and is prepared with the tools to serve the child’s specific needs. The parent has trust and compassion during especially hard times, and the confidence to advocate for the child in various settings.

DiMasi also highlighted the importance of co-regulation, or “how our own regulation impacts our child and their ability to regulate, especially a young child, maybe 7 or under. They are really using their environment and their attachment to a caregiver to help them regulate. I think about the importance of us as caregivers being first able to regulate ourselves - which is really tricky.”

She explained that parents can find regulation difficult in moments when their child is acting up or misbehaving, but it is important to set a good example for them.

During empowered parent coaching sessions, DiMasi uses the ROPE strategy – which stands for recognize, observe, plan and experiment – which helps break goals down into actionable steps.

Well Within’s full-circle services provide coaching and counseling for both the beginning and end of life. In particular, DiMasi offers support for families who are gearing up for an aging loved one to live at home, but they are unsure of how to set up the environment to benefit them, and how to prioritize the changes. She also helps organize at-home family funerals.

For information on DiMasi and Well Within’s services, visit wellwithinnh.com.