Assessments

My use of assessments started when I worked within the corrections departments of Scotland, England and New Zealand for over 13 years. An aspect of this work was to support young people and adults in their rehabilitation away from damaging behaviours towards others which were having a negative impact on their life chances. An aim for my work was to reduce the risk the individuals poised into the future through their violent behaviour. Such assessments, use a mixture of approaches, to enable the formulation of understanding of what are the priority areas which needs to be considered to help the individual effectively.

Trauma, attachment and dissociation

In a similar way I use a range of assessment approaches when appropriate to identify the underlying symptoms which need to be prioritised in treatment, such assessments could be the use of The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative disorders (SCID-D) is widely used to diagnose dissociative disorders or the Trauma Symptoms Child Checklist (TSCC) for children and young people.

Child Clinical Assessments

I have completed child clinical assessments for many local authorities in the UK and many of which have been utilized within various legal processes with the UK such as the Family Court system. I require to agree a clear set of instructions normally from the solicitor of the case. 

Why would I request a clinical assessment?

Organisations and individuals ask for an assessment to be undertaken for a variety of reasons such as:

• Unsure as to the underlying reasons for the behaviour of a child and how best to help the child?
• Unsure about the best placement for a child, is it appropriate for the child to be placed with other children; is foster care or specialist residential care an option?
• Needing an informed assessment for court in terms of adoption or family issues?
• Require an assessment which will identify the best ways to assist the child in recovery from neglect and trauma?
• Current placement reaching disruption and need an accurate assessment and provision of recommendations?

How can such a report be provided?

It is completed 'blind', in that the only information the assessor requires prior to undertaking the assessment is the name, age of child and reason for referral.

In this way the assessment is not contaminated by historical information. I then undertakes the assessment process which is play based, which under normal circumstances can be completed with one session of two hours. This uses a variety of evidence based approaches which validates information across a variety of approaches (structured play, drawings, projective play, story completion, etc)