Assessment

Clinical and therapeutic support

Our clinical and therapeutic services promise the highest quality standards; a truly independent stance; absolute clarity and a broader, holistic approach.

Flexible working practices mean that we are able to achieve unusually fast and accurate turnaround – often as short as 6 weeks, and always well within statutory timescales. And, as with all our services, we work in partnership with our clients and tailor-make what we provide to meet their needs, on an individual or group basis.

ICIS accepts referrals for assessments from a diverse range of clients including health authorities, social service departments, GPs, voluntary agencies, prison services, legal services and legal practices. In some instances, we will act as an agency’s Psychological Service.

Listed below is an overview of who we work with and what we provide.

1. Childrens agencies
2. Legal Services
3. Those affected by Mental Health Problems/Learning and Physical Disabilities
4. Therapy Intervention Programmes (TIP)
5. Consultancy Services

Children’s Agencies

We can:

• Provide clinical and therapeutic work to support children demonstrating emotional and behavioural disturbances and children who have experienced emotional, physical, sexual abuse or neglect.
• Work with children who abuse other children (carried out in conjunction with the appropriate authorities).
• Provide family systemic therapy and assessments of attachments and interaction between siblings and parenting and family assessments. If necessary we will visit families in their own home for observation, or clinical or therapeutic support.
  
  All home assessments are co-worked, enabling us to build up a balanced, more comprehensive understanding of the individual being assessed. Clinical interviews, psychometric testing, direct and indirect observations and history taking are employed.

Legal Services

We work with solicitors and legal services providers on long term and short term intervention involving children, people with learning and physical disabilities or those with mental health problems. We undertake criminal and civil work, will act for the defence or prosecution and have a highly successful record in this field. Typically we can:

• Provide clinical and therapeutic packages and full risk and psychological assessments of alleged offenders in criminal cases - including sexual offenders and those involved in fire setting and drug and alcohol misuse.
• Work with children/adolescents who present with harmful behaviours and adult perpetrators and victims of abuse.
• Provide vulnerable witness assessment on behalf of the CPS.
• Act as an expert witness. Our professionally qualified staff will testify in court on behalf of individual clients and provide independent viewpoints to the police, courts, local authorities and voluntary sector agencies.
• Conduct global family assessments and work with solicitors for the settlement of disputes within care proceedings.
• Make recommendations regarding fostering and adoption.

Those affected by Mental Health Problems/Learning and Physical Disabilities

• ICIS provides clinical and therapeutic services for all mental health problems and this can involve direct treatment or support and advice for primary and secondary care givers.
• In the field of learning and physical disabilities, we work with the elderly, their families and carers and support children and adolescents. As part of promoting understanding, we can advise on the implications of sexual health issues and, if appropriate, develop and deliver follow-up training for care givers.
• In both the above areas, ICIS can develop management strategies for extending/developing care or overcoming specific emotional/behavioural problems. This usually entails assessment, scrutiny of existing procedures and then appropriate care recommendations.
• Throughout, our objective is to improve the quality of care service the user receives.

Therapy Intervention Programmes (TIP)

ICIS has extensive experience of tailor-making programmes to help individuals return to an area of normality.

This may follow on from our own assessment or an assessment provided by others.

Following client acceptance of assessment recommendations, we will develop a focused and effective TIP. This will comprise of a range of therapies – usually cognitive, psychodynamic, insight-orientated and behavioural. Throughout we will work closely with our clients to ensure that what we recommend is achievable within their framework of skills and facilities and addresses the individuals and client’s needs.

Where it is necessary to recommend skills training to enable the TIP to be carried through successfully we will work with the client to achieve this.

An interim report is provided to enable clients to monitor progress.

Consultancy Services

Our range of consultancy services can be used to support other ICIS programmes or to operate on a ‘stand alone’ basis.

The following is simply a taste of the kind of services we offer and we are happy to discuss your particular requirements with you.

We can:

• Work in a variety of settings, including with families or individual children, supporting people with learning and physical disability and those with mental health problems.
• Accept referrals for long and short-term intervention work.
• Advise on the training components of an agency’s work or implement training to meet specific training plans.
• Act as the psychological component in an agency or organisation’s wider work.
• Prepare action plans, care packages and treatment plans for individual clients.
• Evaluate risk assessment provision.
• Develop educational packages.
• Provide clinical supervision, advice and support for staff and management
• Provide individual and group clinical and therapeutic support.