Support For Families
Oasis Psychology offers a range of direct therapeutic support including Assessment, Theerapeutic Parenting Support and Direct support for children and families. Support can be provided both online or at our therapy room in Colehill, nr Wimborne, Dorset.
Specialist Psychological Assessments
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At Oasis Psychology we offer a range of assessments to support with the understanding of a child’s trauma and attachment needs and how these can be met therapeutically.
Assessments involve meeting the child on at least two occaisions, generally in two different envionments, as well as speaking with parents or carers, education, health and social care professionals. Each assessment is bespoke and we use a range of psychometric assessments and questionnaires according to need and situation.
We have working relationships with other local specialists allowing us to provide Multi Disciplinary Assessments of need.
I just wanted to say that it was an absolute pleasure working with you, I admired your knowledge, skills and your thorough assessment with the family which was referred to you. I am confident that your assessment findings will benefit the young person now and also in the future.
Social Worker, Adopt South
Specialist Trauma and Attachment Assessment
Some children and young people can present with numerous and complex needs and finding an appropriate treatment plan can be challenging.
A specialist assessment allows families and professionals to gain a comprehensive understanding of the child and family’s psychological needs with specific focus on the impact of disrupted attachments and developmental trauma.
The assessment will explore the child’s early experiences, their journey through care and how these may be impacting upon their ability to form relationships with parents, carers or support staff.
In addition, assessments can also screen for neurodevelopmental difficulties, mental health difficulties, cognitive difficulties and specific trauma.
The assessment will include the completion of self-report questionnaires by carers and where appropriate, older children, observation and direct assessment with the child and the child and carer together and semi-structured interviews with carers and key professionals.
Where necessary neuropsychological assessments can be undertaken. A full report and feedback session will be provided with recommendations for treatment options.
Pricing
Assessments from £2500. Plesae contact us to discuss your specific requirements.
Placement Planning Clinical Assessment
It can be incredibly sad, and at times bewildering, to see a child bouncing from placement to placement with no clear understanding of why this may be happening.
At Oasis Psychology, we can provide an assessment of a child’s emotional and psychological needs to help inform placement planning. This assessment would explore a child’s early experiences before entering the care system, an in-depth analysis of past placements and a full formulation of a child’s attachment needs in relation to their requirements for a placement. Where appropriate, it could also include a review of a potential placement, in order to ascertain whether this would be an appropriate match from an attachment focused perspective.
Assessments may be direct (involving observation and assessment with the child) or indirect (based on discussion with carers, social workers, health and education staff, without see the child) depending upon the appropriateness and the timescales of the assessment. All assessments will result in a full report and feedback session including recommendations for future placements.
Pricing
Assessments from £3000. Please contact us to discuss your specific requirements.
Sibling Together or Apart Clinical Assessment
Making the decision to separate siblings is an emotional and complex process requiring a high level of assessment. Whilst social workers are skilled in completing these assessments, at times the complexities of children’s attachment needs are such that a more detailed psychological assessment may be valuable.
A together or apart assessment involves exploring children’s early history, with focus on their sibling relationship and the roles they played within the family home, observations of siblings together and apart with and without their carers and completion of assessment measures to explore each child’s attachment needs and the relationship between them.
A full report and feedback session will be provided with recommendations for future care planning.
Please be aware that this assessment will not provide a definitive answer as to whether children should be separated but will instead give and understanding of the appropriateness or inappropriateness of their relationship and the impact upon the children in staying together or being placed apart.
Pricing
Assessments from £3000. Please contact use to discuss your specific requirements.
Parent or Carer Support
Parenting can be a challenging job at the best of times, but when a child has attachment needs and has experienced trauma, this task can become even harder. Sometimes the usual strategies just don’t seem to work.
The Clinical Psychologists at Oasis Psychology support parents and carers to explore why their children may be behaving in a way that challenges them and to use therapeutic techniques to help everyone feel happier at home.
Therapeutic parenting sessions are relationship focused and informed by the concepts of PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy) and DDP. Time may be spent in the sessions exploring parents and carers own experiences of relationships and how these interact with the experiences of the child.
Time can be spent exploring why traditional strategies don't seem to be effective for children with attachment needs and trauma and alternative ways of parenting can be thought through and implemented.
Parents and carers often find having space to reflect on their experiences with their child leads to changes in the relationship and from this an improvement in the child’s behaviour.
Pricing
Therapeutic parent or carer sessions from £150 per hour
Call To ActionTherapy
Oasis Psychology offer two models of direct therapeutic support specifically aimed to support the development of attuned attachment relationships and to process early trauma.
We appreciate that accessing therapy can be a challenging task for children who have been hurt in past relationships and find trust difficult and therefore we adopt a playful and creative approach to therapeutic work, ensuring that sessions are taken at the child’s pace.
We are aware that many children with attachment needs or complex trauma struggle to feel safe in the therapy room and therefore our main therapeutic modalities focus on dyadic (consisting of two parts) therapy, involving both the child and the parents or carers.Â
Video Interaction Guidance (VIG)
VIG is a strengths based, brief therapeutic intervention designed to support the development of secure attachment relationships between children of all ages and their parents or carers.
VIG involves filming a child (or children) and carer playing or interacting together and sharing positive moments of this intervention with their carer in order for them to build upon their positive interactions. VIG helps parents and carers notice moments of attunement within their interactions with their child and allows them to reflect on and explore this relationship to develop attunement further.
VIG is a positive therapeutic approach which can be particularly useful when parents or carers are lacking confidence in their relationship with their child, are struggling to notice positive moments spent with their child or are feeling criticised by the system around them.
VIG has a strong evidence base and is recommended in the NICE guidelines as an evidence-based approach to support attachment difficulties.
Further information can be found at www.videointeractionguidance.net
Pricing
Full VIG package to include introductory appointment with parents or carers, 3 VIG cycles (30 minute recording session, video editing and 1hr shared review session), feedback meeting to professionals and a final report £1600.
Additional VIG cycles £395
We accept referrals for VIG commissioned through the ASGSF.
DDP Informed Therapy
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, (DDP) developed by Daniel A. Hughes is a therapeutic approach involving the primary carers as co-therapists who are present in the therapy with the child throughout. The therapeutic approach begins with the carers meeting alone with the therapist for a number of sessions to explore their experiences of caring for their child and developing the skills of co-therapist. The child is then introduced into the sessions and the focus shifts to supporting the child in developing a new meaning of their past experiences within the safety of their attachment relationship with the carer.
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is underpinned by PACE principles, Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. It allows the therapist to carefully explore a child's experiences whilst in the safe presence of their carers. It allows the child to begin exploring and understanding their memories and integrating these with current emotions and experiences, which may be frightening, shameful or avoided. This allows them to develop a more coherent, less threatening understanding of their journey.
Please visit www.ddpnetwork.org for further information regarding DDP
Further details about the evidence base for DDP can be found in the following article:
Becker-Weidman, A. (2006) Treatment for children with trauma-attachment disorders: Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, March, 2006.
Pricing
Therapy sessions from £150 per hour.
Unfortunately, due to reduced ASGSF budgets we are unable to offer DDP informed family therapy commissioned through the ASGSF
