Families, experts, volunteers, and real-life spaces.
Supporting communication, together.
Mini-Community is a space where people who have been touched by the selective mutism process come together.
It brings together lived experience, community support, professional perspectives, and everyday places. Each part has a different role, but they share one idea: children should be able to participate in ways that feel comfortable to them, without being pressured to speak.
Four connected layers form Mini-Community — lived experience, community support, shared professional knowledge, and everyday places.
Families and adults with lived experience connecting through shared experiences and everyday moments.
People supporting awareness, inclusion, workshops, and pressure-aware participation.
Professionals sharing general knowledge and perspectives without replacing child-specific support.
Everyday places that welcome different ways of participating and communicating.
Together, these four connected layers form Mini-Community.
As a family going through this process, we sometimes felt alone.
My family looked for other families who understood what we were experiencing. Some of those connections began through social media, where sharing everyday worries, questions, and small experiences with people who had been through something similar helped us feel less alone. That need for connection is part of what later became Mini-Families.
We also tried to reach therapists and professionals who had experience with selective mutism, and we saw how important teachers' support could be in everyday life.
The teachers, therapists, clinicians, and other professionals who know and support an individual child understand that child's needs, circumstances, and progress in a way a general community cannot. Within Mini-Community, Mini-Experts have a different role: professionals can share general knowledge, perspectives, experience, and feedback with the wider Mini-Community, but this does not replace the child-specific professional support a family may need.
For speaking practice that felt comfortable for my sister, we would first explain the situation to a place or to the people there, and then return together with her.
Those experiences showed us that everyday places and the people in them can matter too. They helped shape the ideas behind Talk-Spots and Mini-Volunteers: more aware people and more understanding environments can make participation feel safer and more comfortable without adding pressure.
Everyday places became part of the process — one interaction at a time.
I read the menus at restaurants for my sister, and for a long time she whispered her orders in my ear and I placed them.
Over time, my sister started placing my order too.
For us, the most important criterion at restaurants wasn't the food — it was the ordering process.
At the grocery store, my sister asked a store employee where the milk section was for the first time, in a very quiet voice.
While the employee — whom we had informed about my sister's process beforehand — was showing where the milk was, she answered the question "How many glasses of milk do you drink a day?" by showing her fingers first.
Then, another day, she asked where another product was in a louder voice.
We prepared small survey questions together with my sister to ask people on the street.
Sometimes they stopped and answered.
Sometimes they said "I don't have time" and walked on.
And sometimes there were those who were appropriate for my sister to hear her voice spoken aloud to strangers for the first time.
Nobody meant any harm, but most people didn't know how they should act.
If we could have reached aware volunteers and everyday places that understood how to include a child without adding communication pressure, some of these experiences could have felt safer and more comfortable.
Mini-Community was born from these needs in the process — connection, understanding, knowledge, and more supportive everyday environments.
Mini-Community creates space for lived experience, general knowledge sharing, awareness, collaboration, and more understanding everyday environments around children with selective mutism.
Mini-Community does not diagnose, treat, assess, or provide child-specific clinical guidance. It does not replace the teachers, therapists, clinicians, or other professionals who directly know and support an individual child.
Mini-Community exists so families do not have to navigate every part of this process alone — while keeping professional support, personal boundaries, and each child's pace at the center.
Mini-Community
Connect with families, volunteers, professionals, and supportive everyday places that want to create more understanding around children with selective mutism.
Mini-Community is a space where people who are touched by the selective mutism journey come together.
As a family going through this process ourselves, there were times we felt alone.
My family worked to reach other families going through the same journey and sought therapists experienced in this field.
We saw how important teachers' support is in the selective mutism process.
For my sibling to do comfortable speech exercises, we first informed the venues, then went there together as a family.
At restaurants, I would read the menu for my sibling. For a long time, they would whisper their order in my ear. Over time, my sibling started placing their own order. For us, the most important thing at restaurants wasn't the food — it was the process of placing the order.
At the supermarket, my sibling asked the dairy clerk for milk for the first time in a very hoarse voice. When we had previously informed the clerk about my sibling's process and they showed where the milk was, my sibling responded to the question "How many glasses of milk do you drink a day?" by pointing with their fingers first. Then, another day, they asked for a different product's location in a slightly louder voice.
My sibling and I prepared small survey questions to ask people on the street. Sometimes people stopped and answered. Sometimes they said "no time" and walked past. Sometimes there were even those who warned my sibling to speak louder, as it was the first time they heard my sibling's voice directed at strangers.
Nobody had bad intentions, but most people simply didn't know how to act. If we could have reached volunteers who were aware of this issue and could communicate with the child without pressure, this experience would have been much safer and more comfortable. That's exactly the kind of need Mini-Community was born from.
However, I am not a professional, and neither is my family.
In Mini-Community, no treatment or solution is offered.
It exists only so that no one walks this path alone.
It is open to everyone who wants to raise the voices of children with selective mutism, support the process, and walk this path together.
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