The Tavistock Clinic provides a multi-disciplinary clinical service to looked after children and adolescents and their carers, adoptive families and children in the care of their extended families or friends (kinship carers) who are experiencing emotional or behavioural problems.
We work very closely with professional networks.
The service is staffed by professionals from a variety of disciplines and includes:
Comprehensive assessments may be followed by longer-term individual or family treatment, the aim of which is to care for the mental health of the child or adolescent, and to alleviate the problems faced by adoptive parents, carers and other family members.
A range of consultation, assessment and treatment packages are available. These include treatment for children in transition and post adoption work.
The team also provides a range of other assessment and consultation services to Social Services Departments responsible for the placement. These services, which are funded by the social services department and tailored to requirements, provide support to the social services team by clinicians with experience and knowledge of the difficulties and pressures that troubled placements may bring to the team and to individual workers.
The Clinic also offers specialist training to professionals working in the field of fostering, adoption and kinship care. We provide in- service trainings tailored to the requirements of the staff group, clinical consultation groups and hold regular conferences on different themes pertinent to professionals working in this field
Our services comprise:
Assessment
Assessments are provided for Social Service teams and adoptive, foster or kinship families. Assessments are important when placements are particularly complex or problematic. For example:
In the planning stage, where the child or young person may have earlier experience of disruption, trauma, abuse or neglect.
Where there are questions around the separation of sibling groups and/or contact with members of the birth family.
Where children are in transition and permanent placements prove difficult to find.
Where problems emerge post placement or post adoption including emotional/behavioural problems at home and at school.
Where there are serious mental health concerns.
Planning and preparation for leaving care.
Multidisciplinary assessments will vary in the number of sessions (1-12) according to the complexity of the case & the information required.
Moving to Permanence
This package offers consultation to prospective adopters in the matching and introductions stage. Consultations are focused on:
Children in Transition
The Tavistock Clinic has developed a specialised therapeutic service for looked after children, who because of emotional or behavioural problems, are hard to place or for whom plans are difficult to formulate. Their problems may have impacted on & threaten future placement security. By providing an opportunity for children to explore their experiences & feelings in a more thoughtful way within the therapeutic setting, some of these risks may be reduced.
Following assessment, this package consists of:
The timing and duration of the work has to be flexible. In the first instance a series of 6 meetings and a review is scheduled.
Treatment
Our therapeutic work is informed by multiple theoretical models including attachment theory, psychodynamic, systemic, cognitive-behavioural and biological concepts.
Families who care for looked after children are often in need of specialist services. Families frequently struggle with severe and sometimes undiagnosed problems that children can bring with them. We aim to produce a secure base for families over time, enabling them to develop attachments whilst addressing experiences of trauma & loss. The following interventions may be offered singly or in combination after an initial assessment & exploration with families & professionals:
Treatment packages will be offered in blocks of 12 sessions of face-to-face work, including a review meeting. Further blocks may be negotiated as appropriate. For individual child & adolescent psychotherapy the normal expectation would be a minimum of once per week for 1 year alongside work with parents/carers at a negotiated frequency.
Post-Adoption Service
Therapeutic sessions are offered to parents & children following adoption. After assessment, interventions offered include:
Training Group for Adoptive Parents, Foster & Kinship Carers
This is a 12 week group based on the ‘Incredible Years’ training programme, developed by Caroline Webster-Stratton, to help parents and carers with children aged from 2-10 years of age. There is good evidence to show that parents who participate in these groups experience significant & sustained benefits with their children, particularly those who are managing very challenging behaviour. We offer this package alongside other assessment and/or therapeutic work.
The programme uses group discussion, videotape clips, modelling & role-play.
Parents/carers bring examples from family life to work on in the group & are supported by phone contact between sessions.
We have found that it is especially helpful for parents/carers to talk with others with similar experiences. The group work provides an opportunity for parents/carers to experience success in their relationships with their children, which leads to better functioning in the children & to parents/carers feeling more optimistic.
Training & Continuing Professional Development
Alongside clinical work, the service offers professionals a number of opportunities for continuing professional development:
For further information about our services please contact:
Sara Barratt
Team Chair, Fostering, Adoption and Kinship Care Service
Tel: 0208 938 2280
Or Jane Anderson
Team Administrator
Tel: 0208 938 2500
