We offer comprehensive assessments for families and children with complex difficulties. Our assessment work can be commissioned by education, health or social care services. We will also consider requests for privately funded assessment work. We work closely with local adoption support agencies. Our assessments can be funded by the Adoption Support Fund, commissioned through local authority adoption support agencies.
Our Values and Approach
We believe that each child and family deserve the time, compassion and care that will enable them to thrive, feel safe, be delighted in, and connect with the world around them. Working with families is a privilege. We are committed to ensuring that every interaction/intervention with our service is both purposeful and respectful.
We are committed to contributing to networks of support around children that give consideration to all of the contexts impacting on families which may include issues such as housing, power, poverty, equality of access to community resources and opportunities. To this end, we strive to work collaboratively, in partnership with families, throughout the assessment process.
We specialise in working with families where developmental trauma and adversity has contributed to the main presenting issues. Our associates have extensive training and expertise in sensory needs, attachment relationships, mental health, trauma and cognitive assessment. Our work is informed by the Bruce Perry Neuro-sequential Model of Therapeutics and Dyadic Developmental Practice, alongside robust evidence from mental health research and clinical practice.
Our assessment reports provide a full description of a child/family’s therapeutic needs, informed by the developing evidence base in the field. We can also make recommendations about family contact plans, sibling placements and therapeutic parenting support. We have a special interest in working with kinship and SGO carers.
Assessment Components
Our comprehensive assessment package includes the following:
- Sensory profile interview and associated tasks
- Structured assessment of attachment relationships (Story Stem, MIM, Meaning of the child)
- Psychological assessment (clinical interview/observation and standardised measures)
- Assessment of family relationships and context
- Cognitive Assessment
- Background reading and professional liaison as appropriate
- Verbal feedback meeting with family and key professionals
Each assessment will provide clear, accessible information about the child’s psychological and sensory needs.
We will also comment on contextual issues that may be supporting or constraining change
We will provide detailed recommendations about interventions that are most likely to be helpful, and the sequence in which these interventions should be provided
We will respond to specific questions agreed at the outset of any assessment (e.g. what family contact arrangements that would support the child’s wellbeing)
We will respectfully consider the needs of the whole family alongside those of individual children.
Timescales
The assessment process typically takes place over a four-week period. The full report is produced within three weeks of the assessment concluding.
Additional information
We do not provide psychiatric or diagnostic assessments. We may comment on neurodevelopmental issues but we will not report a diagnostic label such as Autism or ADHD
Costs vary depending on the complexity of the situation and the number of children being included in the process. Please contact us to obtain quotes for bespoke assessments.
Our practice is based in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire. All of our assessments take place at our office base or online.