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| Family Futures Court Assessment and Expert Witness Service |
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| Our service |
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Family Futures is a multi-disciplinary organisation that specialises in working with traumatised children who are in the care of the Local Authority or who are adopted.
Our court and expert witness service is one element of the services we offer. It is specifically designed to help courts address the complex needs of children who are subject to Care Proceedings. We recognise that, in making ‘best interest’ decisions, courts may struggle to balance children’s competing needs. In response to this Family Futures has developed a great deal of experience in providing courts with multi-disciplinary assessments in complex cases for Guardians, Solicitors and Local Authorities. We also have considerable experience in attending court as expert witnesses.
Our multi-disciplinary team includes: Child and Adolescent Psycho-therapists, Social Workers, Parent Mentors, Educational Specialist, Paediatric Occupational Therapist, Educational Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Paediatrician and Clinical Nutritionist.
We are aware that ‘drift’ in decision making for children is to be avoided where possible and we therefore aim to complete our assessments within two months of a referral being made.
| What do we offer? |
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The issues covered in our assessments include the following:
•Fitness to parent:
We work with birth parents to assess their attachments styles and their capacity to meet their children’s needs. This may include helping parents to accept responsibility for their child’s past experiences and also ways in which to work with their professional network.
•Attachments of children to birth parents, kin and siblings:
In assessing children’s attachments we start from a consideration of the impact on a child of their myriad experiences and the way this has helped to inform their view of the world. From this base we can assess the attachments children have to the significant people in their lives and the impact this is likely to have on subsequent attachment relationships.
•Whether siblings should be placed together or apart:
This can be a particularly complex arena in which to make assessments as we must consider the needs of each child within a family alongside the impact of early experiences on the sibling group dynamic.
•Matching issues:
When it is not appropriate for children to remain at home with their birth parents we will provide a profile of the child’s parenting needs and advise courts about the ‘best fit’ placements for them.
•Contact issues:
Children who cannot remain in the care of their birth parents or where decisions have been made to place them separate from siblings need to understand their culture and birth family background in order to make sense of themselves. Contact issues will be addressed in the context of each child’s individual needs.
•Children’s therapeutic needs:
Children traumatised by abuse, neglect or frequent change in carer are likely to need long-term therapy to help them begin the repair process. They may also struggle in school and may need different parenting than their non-traumatised counterparts. We can provide assessments of children’s complex therapeutic, parenting and educational needs.
| The assessment tools we use |
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- Collation of paper-based information including the following:
- A detailed chronology and a nurture- trauma timeline
- A diary of the child's daily routine and behaviour
- A written account of the concerns that the parents and / or the professionals have about the child
- School reports and examples of the child's schoolwork
- Copies of any previous assessment carried out on the child
- Paediatric and health history
- The completion of the following questionnaires
(as appropriate):
- The child behaviour checklist
- An executive functioning questionnaire
- A child trauma checklist
- A parental stress checklist
- A multidisciplinary child assessment using a variety of assessment tools; involving all relevant family members and a staff group that reflects the number of children being assessed
- A sibling assessment, where appropriate
- 'Facilitated' contact, where appropriate
- Parenting assessments, where appropriate
| Our fees |
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Court Assessment:
These complex pieces of work are costed on a case by case basis and are based on the Family Futures hourly rate of £175 per person + VAT
Psychiatric Assessment (per child)
Psychiatric State of Mind Assessment & Report £1,857 + VAT
Paediatric Appraisal (per child)
Paediatric Appraisal & Report £1,857 + VAT
We provide a detailed plan and costing based on the Letter of Instruction which is agreed in advance of the assessment taking place. Where changes of plan result in cost changes we will ensure these are agreed in advance of the work taking place.
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