The first thing I am likely to offer a new family, child or young person is an assessment before treatment begins. However, assessments and reports can be requested as a stand-alone offer:
Assessment as a stand-alone piece of work:
Assessments will be tailored to ensure they fit the child and/or family who requires them but they broadly fall into the following types:
- Observation and report:
observations can be conducted in school, and/or home settings. A detailed report considering the child’s experiences, feelings, interactions and behaviour will be drawn up along with a formulation (what I think is happening and why), and support/treatment recommendations which can be used to inform further treatment planning either with myself or other professionals or organisations.
- Initial meeting, three sessions, review and report:
I offer initial meetings with carers/parents or older teens and young adults free of charge – these can be online. Following this, if a detailed assessment is suitable and desirable I will meet with the child or young person twice, and then meet with the parents/carers for an appointment, before we join together for a group review – during the review session I will provide a detailed report (with the child/young person’s consent) detailing the themes that emerged, my thoughts about the themes, and a plan of further support. This plan can be used to inform support either with me, or with other agencies or professionals as appropriate. Sometimes I will additionally suggest a professionals meeting to assess what is happening in the network around a child, and to share my recommendations.
Assessments at the beginning of an offer of therapy:
Similar to above, I aim to offer an initial meeting, three sessions, review and report before proceeding with any further work. The assessment period is a very important time – not only for me to assess in detail what is going on for the child, family/carers and network but also for you to assess whether this is the right type of work for you. In under fives work this is slightly different, and the work can begin following an initial meeting with the family. For older teens and young people it is not a requirement for parents/carers to be involved in the assessment or treatment.
Please email me to request an initial meeting.