CAMHS National and Specialist Services Directory - SLaM National ...

Child Care Assessment Service
Location: Maudsley Hospital
Mode: Outpatient
91% of lead solicitors rated the
quality of our service as above
average. Child Care Assessment Service
Evaluation, 2009
94% of guardians rated the quality
of our service as above average.
Child Care Assessment Service Evaluation, 2009
We see children, young people and their families who are
undergoing care proceedings in public or private courts.
Our team also has agreements with some local authorities
to undertake a set number of assessments per year,
including consultation and pre-proceedings assessment.
We provide assessments and court reports for children and
their parents or carers. We also include members of the
extended family and foster carers, where appropriate.
Criteria
We provide detailed assessments of parenting, the quality
of relationships and attachments within the family, the
mental health or diagnosis of the children and mental health
screening of adults to include personality disorder, substance
misuse and forensic history.
Our assessment is tailored to the questions raised by the
court, and includes psychiatric, psychological and social
work interviews. This may include individual child and parent
interviews for couples, and siblings or family interviews.
As well as interviews with foster carers and schools.
Our team provides a comprehensive report for the court,
with recommendations on placement needs, contact
arrangements, education and treatment needs. The lead
clinician writing the report attends court to give evidence
upon request.
Service level agreements are negotiated with local boroughs
if required.
Eligibility
• Families with children up to 18 years old
• Male or female, adults and children
• Families undergoing public or private law proceedings
• Any members of a family (children, adolescents or parents) requiring a psychological or psychiatric report (or both)
• Local authorities requiring consultation on a particular case before commissioning an expert
Care option Description Cost Unit
Outpatient
Assessment
Court reports
Professional
meetings
Court attendance
Consultation
Our assessments take place for one day per week over a three to four week
period and involves the whole family. We regularly request information from
schools and other professionals involved with the family. We provide a detailed
formulation of each family member’s needs, including risk assessment and risk
management plans. The assessment process involves interviews and questionnaires
completed with family members and other professionals, detailed observations
of contact, and a multidisciplinary case discussion.
An average adult assessment takes approximately 35 hours and an average
child or adolescent assessment is 25 hours.
Comprehensive reports are provided, which address questions raised by the
court. Our reports include recommendations on placement options, educational
and treatment needs, and contact arrangements.
Once our reports have been filed with the court, we hold professional meetings
in order to assist with the care planning for the children. At these meetings we
present our findings and formulations, including any risk management issues.
We also provide advice on care planning.
The lead clinician for each case is the person who attends court on behalf
of the team.
We provide consultation to local authorities in pre-proceeding cases. This is to
help the referrer consider and formulate the case, and provide guidance for the
next steps. This may include things like, whether or not a comprehensive
assessment is required, whether safeguarding procedures need to be put
in place and whether the adults require psychiatric assessments.
Referrals are accepted from: Contacts: Address:
Local authorities
Solicitors
Dr Nicola Cosgrave, Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Margaret Jailler, Administrator
£190 Per hour
£190 Per hour
£190 Per hour
£1,000 Per day
£190 Per hour
Child Care Assessment Service
Michael Rutter Centre
Maudsley Hospital
De Crespigny Park
Denmark Hill
London SE5 8AZ
Tel: 020 3228 3474
Fax: 020 3228 5011
Email: margaret.jailler@slam.nhs.uk
Interventions which may be provided
• Multidisciplinary assessment
• Cognitive and neuropsychological assessments
• Autism and autistic spectrum diagnosis
• Assessment of family relationships and attachments
• Assessment of parenting capacity
• Assessment of emotional, physical and sexually harmful
behaviour, and neglect
• Assessment of adult personality and mental health screening
• Parental substance misuse
• Diagnosis of child psychiatric disorder
• Diagnosis of adult personality disorder
• Risk assessment and management
• Forensic risk assessment
• Detailed observations of contact between family members
• Comprehensive court report
• Recommendations on placement, education, treatment needs
and contact arrangements
Outcomes
• Recommendations that aim to improve the long-term
outcomes for children, through advice about placement
at home or elsewhere, contact and appropriate treatment
” The judge really liked the report and relied
on this evidence in court.” Solicitor
38 39