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Assessment & Therapy

About our Assessment & Therapy services

Five Rivers’ Assessment & Therapy service was first developed out of our mission to ‘transform the lives of children and young people’, focusing on those who were accessing our education, residential and fostering services.

What is Assessment & Therapy?

The purpose of Assessment & Therapy in child care services is to help the child or young person, or foster carer, to understand a young person’s past and present. The therapeutic approaches that may be adopted thereafter are to help maintain and maximise their independence to develop practical life skills so that they can participate to their full potential in the home and classroom environment.

Who do we support?

We aim to explore the child and young person’s past and present, offering practical, applicable advice. Understanding the impact of previous experiences, such as placement breakdowns, changes and family dynamics, helps us to fully understand these experiences and enables us to explore how this may be impacting on a child’s well-being.

Our assessment & therapy team provide guidance using psychological understanding to ensure the child and their carers are properly supported. We encourage the team around the child or young person to work together in a way that considers the child’s complete picture. By doing so, we can help teams, carers and the children to achieve the best possible outcomes.

– Support for children and young people

We have a very clear vision for both the children, young people and carers within our care. Every child is unique and deserves the best possible support to maximise their potential. Children should have the right to experience high quality care and should be able to explore their experiences in a safe, non-judgemental and supported environment.

Read about our Therapy and Educational Support Services here.

– Support for carers

Our foster carer community should be provided with support, guidance and information, helping them to feel they are part of the team around the child or young person. We work with our foster carers to become confident and capable so they can see themselves as the best form of intervention for their child.

Types of Therapy we use

We offer a range of psychological interventions to children and young people, foster carers and adoptive parents. Our interventions are based on the needs of the client and draw from an eclectic range of psychological approaches including:

  • Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)
  • Play therapy
  • Attachment Regulation Competency (ARC)
  • Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
  • Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)
  • Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
  • Video Interaction Guidance
  • Mentalisation-based approach
  • Psychodynamic approaches

Find out more about our Therapeutic Care services.

About our Assessment & Therapy team

The Five Rivers team continually seeks to develop our services, providing an evidence-based model of specialist care. Our team has a direct working relationship with respected partners such as The Anna Freud Centre and University College London.

Within the Assessment & Therapy team, we:

  • Ensure we see and understand the child, offering practical and emotional help where appropriate.
  • Understand the impact of previous family dynamics, placement breakdowns and changes.
  • Guide, incorporate and encourage psychological understanding to ensure the child is appropriately supported.
  • Believe that the team around the child needs to work in a wholly integrated and holistically-charged manner to provide the best possible outcomes for all involved.

If you would like to find out more about our Assessment & Therapy services or would like to make a referral, please contact us.

Work with us

We are always looking for engaged and passionate people to work for us and have a range of opportunities.

Find out more
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