Dr Kathryn Whyte

I’m a Clinical Psychologist with 25 years post qualifying experience working with children, young people, families and their networks. For the first 15 years I worked closely with children’s social care and adoption specialist services in specialist NHS CAMHS teams. From 2017 to 2025 I worked at Beacon House in a different capacity – as Clinic Lead of the Chichester Clinic and part of the service wide leadership team. As part of a service restructure following changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund, I left that role. I returned to Beacon House as an associate therapist with a focus on assessments of therapeutic need and with a special interest in assessment and therapeutic work with families where FASD is part of the picture.

As a clinical psychologist, formulation is at the heart of how I work. I often say that I think in ‘Venn diagrams’ and take a ‘both-and’ rather than ‘either-or’ view of situations as a way of taking all the complexity into account. Figuring out with a child, young person and their family what is going on, why things are as they are and importantly, the best way to make the changes they would like to see is a focus of my assessments. Working therapeutically, I bring that same curiosity along with compassion, humour and a hope to have the biggest impact with the least effort. Quick wins are important and so I’ll often focus on sleep, food, eating and nutrition, or ways to change the environment or family routine that can kick start positive changes.