| Can our family just do an assessment and not have the brief intervention? | The short answer is yes. However, we believe in and recommend doing the family assessment followed by the brief intervention. The assessment process can often uncover issues that haven’t been thought about or discussed in your family before. Helping a family know how to move forward with those issues is an important part of the overall process, because essentially it is the ‘helping’ part. Additionally, should issues surface in the family assessment that need to be worked through (as is likely to occur) it is not recommended to leave an assessment without any follow up, as this is akin to opening a can of worms! |
| Can the Centre provide our family with long term family therapy after the assessment? | Unfortunately, at this stage we are unable to offer long term family therapy. |
| Will you speak to our referring doctor/health professional after our assessment to talk with them about the findings of our assessment? | As part of your assessment we provide feedback to your referring practitioner through either a phone discussion or letter. Feedback can only be provided with your consent. We respect your right to not provide feedback to your referring practitioner should you not want this to occur. |
| Can you provide an assessment even if some family members can’t or don’t want to attend? | We strongly recommend that all family members attend your family assessment, because all family members are important, and most will play a vital role in helping change happen in your family unit. |
| We suspect our child might have Autism, can your assessments provide a diagnosis for us? | At this stage unfortunately we cannot provide diagnoses for Autism. Additional hours of diagnostic and psychometric testing are likely to be required for this diagnosis, which is beyond the current scope of our service. However, if we suspect an Autism diagnosis, we can inform you about why we suspect this, and the next steps you can take to obtain the diagnosis and how to support your child in the interim. |
| What does the assessment stage involve? | Please refer to information on our website listed under 'Process', for comprehensive details of what is involved 'pre', 'post' and during the assessment stage. |
| What does brief intervention mean? | 'Brief' refers to 6 sessions or less that we spend with your child and/or family after the assessment (should you want to access intervention) to help implement any changes that may benefit your child and family. It can include (but is not limited to) short-term therapy, psychological education and/or the provision of skills. |
| Do you have any resources our family can use at home, instead of having a formal assessment and brief intervention? | We will have some very soon! In 2024 we are developing resources for you to use with your family. We hope to have some of these on offer to you in 2025, which you will be able to access through our website. Please check back next year. |