Type of service: Assessment, Diagnostic services, Interventions and therapies

Service URL: https://www.everlief.co.uk/

Everlief is a child psychology service offering assessment and therapeutic intervention for children aged 0-18. Their ASD assessments include an initial meeting and observation of the child, observation at school (where possible), and the DISCO (Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders) semi-structured interview with the child's parents.

Interventions include 1-1 support for children, individual parent support, and online parent group workshops (see http://theyarethefuture for details). One-to-one interventions are individually tailored but may include support in developing social skills, or cognitive-behavioural therapy for associated mental health difficulties such as OCD.

Dr Lucy Russell and Dr Jennifer Swanston are clinical psychologists with a specialism in autism. They offers the diagnostic service and writes the overall report for clients of this service. Dr Russell previously led the autism specialist service in a CAMHS service and also has a brother with Asperger's Syndrome. This theory with 'real life' experience can be very valuable. Both Dr Russell and Dr Swanston are DISCO trained and have received the NAS autism awareness training.

Assessment procedure: At the start one of the team would meet you and your child for an hour. This would be to go through a general background and to make the decision about whether to proceed with the full ASD assessment. If we proceed the assessment will consist of: - DISCO (Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders) which is completed with the parents – Parents only – via zoom. - ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Version 2) (OR occasionally cognitive assessment WISC-V (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Version Five) – for your child- At Everlief - Input from school – School observation or class teacher interviewed - Occupational therapy (OT) assessment with our partners Leap Children’s Therapy – for your child – At Leap Children’s Therapy - Write up and generation of comprehensive report pack including diagnostic decision and recommendations - Complimentary follow up appointment to discuss recommendations Follow up service: We will start by answering any questions after reading the reports. Next, we will help prioritise the recommendations. Finally we can support the child therapeutically. Multi-disciplinary assessment: Yes, we use a multi-disciplinary approach with clinical psychologists and occupational therapists.
 

Aimed at: Adolescent , Child

Referral Sources: Private Only

Specialisms: Has autism-specific elements, Staff and volunteers get autism awareness training

Other specialisms: Challenging behaviour, Learning disability

Registrations and professional qualifications: Clinical Psychologist.

Approaches and tools used: ADOS, DISCO