Psychological assessments for children and young people

We provide a variety of specialist psychological assessments for children, young people and families. These include assessments of therapeutic need for adopted or looked after children, as well as a range of package or bespoke options for children with additional needs. Our assessments incorporate evidence-based assessment methods, sessions with both the child and the family and a comprehensive report with expert recommendations for the next steps.

Psychological assessments of therapeutic need

Psychological assessments of therapeutic need help to decide the most appropriate therapy direction. At Gateway, our assessments include evidence-based assessment methods (like the Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test, the Conners Clinical Index, the Thinking About Your Child Questionnaire and more). Once an assessment is complete, the clinician will make a professional recommendation for further therapeutic input based on the needs of the child or young person.

Our psychological assessments are often funded through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. Please speak to your manager or representative for more information, or contact us for a quote.

Assessment of placement needs

Our clinical team are experienced in conducting assessments to determine the placement needs for a child or young person. We know how important a safe, secure and supportive placement is for children going into a care environment. That’s why our assessments help to determine what type of placement would meet the needs of the child or young person, as well as any additional requirements.

This type of assessment may include contact recommendations, personal support needs, carer training requirements and suggestions for how to provide a supportive home for the child or young person.

ASD Assessments

At Gateway we are able to offer diagnostic assessments for Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), having members of the clinical team who are trained in standardised assessment tools. These include the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS); The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO). Our ASD assessments include a bespoke package which includes the use of standardised assessment tools alongside clinical interview, liaison with involved professionals, and other measures that may be necessary for differential diagnosis (e.g cognitive assessment, measures relating to executive functioning, attachment etc.)

Bespoke assessment packages

If you have a bespoke requirement, please get in touch with our team. We regularly work with schools, Local Authorities, Regional Adoption Agencies and other organisations to conduct psychological assessments tailored to the needs of the child or young person.

FAQs

The cost of our psychological assessments varies depending on the work required. The best thing to do is get in touch with us for an up-to-date quote for the work you are commissioning.

ASGSF assessments are structured to fit into the Fair Access Limit (FAL) for assessments of adopted children or young people.

Our assessments may be funded through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. This must be commissioned by the Local Authority or Regional Adoption Agency, so please talk to your manager or representative to see if the work required can be funded in this way. You are welcome to contact us for more information and we’ll do our best to help.

We are a registered adoption support agency and rated Outstanding by Ofsted for our work with adoptive families.

Our clinical team are highly qualified and have many years of experience in working with children and young people. Our clinical psychologists all have doctorate-level training (DClinPsy) and are registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Our psychological therapists are masters-level trained and are also registered with Social Work England.

In addition to extensive experience, each of our clinicians is trained in a variety of therapeutic approaches. Our clinical team are all trained to DDP Level 2, and we have additional training in EMDR, NVR, Theraplay, the BUSS model and more. If you have specific questions about our qualifications or professional registrations, please get in touch

Yes, all our staff members are DBS checked.

Our clinical team all hold up to date enhanced DBS checks. Our administrative staff have standard DBS checks.

At the moment, it’s not a requirement for providers to register with Ofsted, other than for Adoption support services. However, we think it’s really important that we follow the standards required for companies working with all children and young people.

As such, we are regularly inspected by Ofsted for our work with adopted children and young people. While Ofsted evaluates this portion of our business in detail, they also look at the way we operate in general.

We are currently rated Outstanding, and we encourage you to read our most recent Ofsted reports should you wish to do so.

Please contact us with your requirements by email or phone. We’ll talk about the needs of your client with you, and may request another phone call so that our clinical team can put together a quote. We may recommend an assessment to identify the therapeutic needs of the child or young person.

We will then provide you with a formal quote, which would detail the package of work we recommend.

Once a quote is approved and a purchase order received, we will start the case opening process. We usually anticipate that the case would begin within 6 weeks after receiving a purchase order. During this time, our admin team will arrange for consent and registration forms from the parents or carer, and the most appropriate clinician will be allocated to the case.

At the moment, we do not operate a waiting list.

Our work is always invoiced on a monthly basis. These invoices are based on the work completed during that month. We anticipate that assessments will typically take around 3 months, however this could be different depending on the type of assessment required

At the end of each assessment, the clinician will put together an in-depth report. This will have detail including the type of assessment methods used, their professional opinion and recommendations for next steps. This report is usually shared with the parents/carers and the commissioning social worker or professional.

After an assessment is completed, the social worker or organisation will usually commission the work recommended in the report. This work may be allocated to Gateway Psychology or commissioned to another service (or a combination of both).

If you have any questions or would like to make a referral to our service, please get in touch with our team.