Nina Capaccio, a Personal Development Coach with a degree in Psychology, and Nicole Gabriel, who has a Master's Degree in Psychology, are both mothers to Highly Sensitive Children, and deliver local workshops, offer mentoring and one-to-one coaching. In addition, they write regular Blogs, maintain a Facebook page and their website, all in an effort to reach out to parents and carers who may be struggling with behaviour that they don't understand in the children in their care.
Nina said: "We recognise the challenges, as well as enjoy the gifts, that come from raising our Highly Sensitive Children, and want to share the knowledge and information that we have gathered on our exploration into High Sensitivity.
"Before realising that our children were Highly Sensitive, we were often at a loss to know how to deal with the meltdowns and tantrums that seemed a frequent occurrence. Discovering the work into High Sensitivity by the psychologist Elaine Aron helped us to turn a corner and we haven't looked back since.
"We now understand that this is a normally occurring trait that is found in 15-20% of the population, that it is sadly sometimes misdiagnosed by so-called experts as being a Sensory Processing Disorder or some form of Autism, due to the lack of knowledge about the trait."
Nicole Gabriel said: "It is so important that parents, carers, teachers and anyone involved in the health & wellbeing of children are aware of this trait. Research, in particular from Jay Belsky and Michael Pluess, has shown that Highly Sensitive Children brought up in nurturing and supportive environments will do better than non-highly sensitive children brought up in the same environment.
"However, when placed in an environment that is not supportive or is stressful in some way, Highly Sensitive Children will do worse than non-highly sensitive children. They have called this 'Differential Susceptibility', and it is possibly due to this that many Highly Sensitive Children can end up being treated for anxiety and depression in later life."
Nina and Nicole took their story to Steve Brine, who expressed a huge interest in their work. He said: "I have been speaking to them for some time now, and it is clear to me that we need to help inform and educate people about High Sensitivity so that we can all work towards providing the best possible environments for them to thrive in.
"I have learnt that Highly Sensitive People tend to be highly creative and deep thinkers, characteristics that our world needs of course, and I know they would love to take their workshops into schools."
Nina added: "If we were able to do this, we could help teachers identify what, if any, changes they can make in their classrooms to help the Highly Sensitive Children fulfil their considerable potential. "Often it may mean providing something as simple as a Quiet Space for the Highly Sensitive Child to retreat to when they start to feel overwhelmed."
Pictured; Nina Capaccio (left) and Nicole Gabriel (right)
More information ...
Naturally HSP and Facebook: NaturallyHSP