Assessment appointments are needed to gain an understanding of the problem and to gauge how best to help. The aim is to get as broad a picture as possible of how your child is doing in all aspects of his or her life, in the present day as well as in the past, at home and at school.  Sometimes clues to where difficulties lie are buried in the past, sometimes problems occur due to the current situation you find yourselves in.  Appointments are tailored to your particular circumstances and the age of your child; for example, an older adolescent may be seen before meeting up with his or her parents.

The assessment often runs to five meetings:

• an initial assessment appointment to hear about current concerns, and to gather information about your child’s developmental and family history,
• followed by three individual assessment appointments for the child or young person,
• and a further appointment to feed back observations and opinion, and to discuss next steps.

Next steps
The assessment appointments may

• be enough to move things on
• indicate that psychotherapy is the treatment of choice
• suggest that a different approach is needed, with help to find and get access to it

Confidentiality
I explain issues relating to confidentiality to parents and their child or teenager at our first meeting.