Child and Family Clinic

Here at Beacon House we have a team of psychologists and psychotherapists who can work with a wide range of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children, teens and families.

We are a multi-disciplinary team and we take pride in ensuring that all aspects of the child and family’s well-being is integrated into the therapy plan. We understand that a child does not struggle, or indeed thrive, in isolation from their family and their school environment; and we always aim to consider how we can understand and support all aspects of the child’s world, including their emotional and physical health.

We are not a diagnostic service, which means that when children and young people visit us for an assessment, we don’t value diagnosing them with a mental health disorder. Instead, we value developing a psychological formulation of their difficulties. This means that we work with the parents and the young person to develop an understanding of:

• When the difficulties started
• What early experiences and developmental needs may have contributed to the difficulties
• What is keeping the difficulties going
• What strengths and resources the child and family can bring into play

Young people and families tell us that this approach feels empowering, refreshing and hopeful.

Common difficulties that young people and families come to Beacon House with include:

Following your child’s referral, the difficulties that he or she brings will be discussed by our clinical team. Your child will then be carefully matched to a therapist in the team who offers the most helpful skill set and experience given the difficulties you have described to us. For this reason, we might ask for quite a lot of detail when you phone to make a referral or may, in some circumstances, arrange for one of our clinical leads to call you for more information before we decide which therapist to match your child or family with. Once we have matched your child to a therapist, one of our secretaries will then get back in touch with you to offer an initial assessment date, which will be confirmed in writing. You will be asked to pay for the assessment upfront over the telephone.

There is a huge demand for our services, so during particularly busy times there may be a wait for a suitable appointment to become available for you.

What happens after the assessment?

The assessment will make recommendations which we feel would be beneficial, and which fits with your own priorities for change. The recommendations we make are informed by the following key principles:

1. To enable a child to thrive, an intervention plan needs to consider the powerful, therapeutic role of how the parents/carers can facilitate change (a child can rarely thrive in isolation from their families!)
2. The young person’s behaviours that we are concerned about are an outward communication of an underlying emotional pain. To create change, we must look beneath the surface to understand, heal and accept the hidden hurt.
3. Therapy is most effective when it is offered in the right sequence. Sometimes, change in the parents’ understanding and responses is needed before change in the young person can be seen.
4. Often, therapy is most effective when it is offered in phases, with planned ‘therapeutic breaks’. This means that the young person and the parents can put into practice all that they have learnt about themselves and each other.

Your recommendations will include one or more of the following therapeutic interventions:

How is my child’s progress reviewed?

Therapeutic progress is something which is continually reviewed throughout the therapy. During the assessment, the therapist will make a plan with you about how many sessions should take place before a more formal ‘pause and review’ appointment is offered.

Alongside this, we have three main ways that we evaluate the therapeutic progress your child makes:

1. During your child’s assessment, you will be asked to fill out a number of questionnaires, which will be re-administered at the end of each piece of work.
2. At the start of each piece of work, you and your child will be asked to identify three therapeutic goals, and scale them to show us how well you feel you are achieving those goals. We will review your goals and your scaling at the end of therapy.
3. At the end therapy, you and your child will be asked to tell us how satisfied you feel with your experience of coming to Beacon House and whether you feel the difficulties you came here for have improved.