Young people
Young people who are looked after often face significant physical and mental health inequalities and, after leaving care, experience very poor educational and social outcomes. Moreover, those in residential care are up to five times more likely than their peers to show emotional and behavioural difficulties. This is because they have complex needs, which cannot always be addressed fully by statutory services if they adopt a short-term intervention model or have lengthy waiting lists. Clinical Psychology Associates therefore offers independent care providers immediate access to a comprehensive range of clinical services.
Services for young people in residential care
Our clinical psychologists are highly skilled in assessing and formulating the social and psychological difficulties experienced by young people and applying evidence-based therapeutic interventions to address the entire spectrum of presenting problems, including attachment difficulties, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, self-harm, anger control problems, challenging behaviours, social skills deficits, interpersonal problems, sleep disruption, adjustment problems, the psychological consequences of abuse and neglect, identity disturbance, lack of empathy, eating disorders and substance misuse.
This therapeutic input is ideally reinforced by training that equips care staff to look beneath the surface of overt problems such as challenging behaviour and refusal to engage in education in order to identify and target the negative emotions and psychological processes that are causing these difficulties.
Numerous organisations have commissioned us to implement a systematic approach to the management of challenging behaviour that enables staff to work in a genuinely proactive and preventative way. This has been shown to result in fewer aggressive incidents and physical interventions, as well as greater perceived efficacy and lower turnover in staff.
In addition, we deliver training in a wide range of other cutting-edge, evidence-based therapeutic interventions that enable staff to address the difficulties commonly confronting young people in care, including:
- Risk management
- Low self-esteem
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Self-harm
- Anger control problems
- Adjustment to bereavement and loss
- Coping with the consequences of abuse
Services for foster carers and families
We offer specialist training for carers participating in fostering services in the form of the ‘Incredible Years’ Parent Training Program – the ‘gold standard’ parenting intervention developed by Carolyn Webster-Stratton.
In addition, our clinical psychologists work therapeutically with young people and their families, and conduct comprehensive assessments of parenting abilities and family relationships if required for care proceedings.
Consultancy
We help organisations to devise and implement rigorous and effective systems of clinical governance that identify meaningful clinical and social outcomes and employ a combination of standardised psychometric measures and qualitative assessments. This enables our clients to demonstrate the clinical effectiveness of their services to commissioners.
We also provide policy support and assist with strategic development, ensuring that services are configured to maximise their market competitiveness.