The Bridge – Child Care Development Service

A Multi-Disciplinary Forensic Consultation and Assessment Service

The Bridge Child Care Development Service is a charitable organisation that for over 20 years has been concerned with improving services for vulnerable children. The service was incorporated into NCH in 2002 and its work includes:

  • Serious Case Reviews following guidance contained in “Working Together to Safeguard Children” (HMSO 1999)
  • Quality assurance and audit of social services casework
  • Management and casework consultancy
  • Inter agency and single agency training programmes
  • Development of policies and procedures

The Forensic Team

Since 2003 The Bridge has had a multi professional forensic team with both adult and child care expertise, to provide the Courts and Local Authorities with a ‘one stop shop’ of expertise in safeguarding children. Team members are senior, experienced professionals whose backgrounds are Social Work, Psychology and Psychiatry. Assessments can be commissioned from one or more members of the forensic team. The team work with both parents and children, using their different perspectives to understand the whole bio-psycho-social system of the family whilst ensuring that the child’s needs are central.

This initiative draws on the lessons of serious case reviews, in particular the challenges faced by professionals in working together and in accessing specialist services to assist planning with complex families.

A rigorous and systematic approach is used in data collection, organisation and analysis and the generation of recommendations.

The assessment is planned in collaboration with the parties and recommendations are finalised after consultation with the parties contributing to the Care Plan.

The team can offer assessments from a particular perspective on specific aspects of a case for example:

  • The risks a particular parent/carer presents to a child, whether or not those risks can be managed and if so, how
  • The ability of a parent to protect a child from a parent who has committed a Schedule 1 offence or a violent offence against adults

The forensic team aims to:

  • Begin with an open mind and bring a ‘newcomer perspective’ to each case
  • Provide a bespoke service on a case by case basis
  • Integrate the expertise and perspectives of the team to provide a ‘think family approach’
  • Gather and review evidence thoroughly and systematically
  • Analyse the risks
  • Consider the whole social and family system whilst keeping the child’s needs central
  • Maximise the opportunities for communication and collaboration between the parties
  • Take account of the relevant best practice standards
  • Make recommendations to help children achieve positive outcomes

The forensic team is under the overall management of Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent, Educational Psychologist and Director of NCH - The Bridge. Dr Mike Shaw is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Sarah Jones is a Social Worker with prior experience of working as a Children’s Guardian, Dr Maggie Hilton and Paul Devonshire are forensic Clinical Psychologists and Rhiannon Carney is an Educational Psychologist. The Team also calls on other practitioner’s expertise in order to provide a relevant and prompt service.

The Bridge and the forensic team are experienced in delivering services to diverse communities. The service works regularly with families experiencing disadvantage as a result of direct and indirect discrimination, The Team holds as important the understanding of different ethnic minority communities and accesses consultation, where appropriate, around such communities.

The assessments will ensure that all dimensions of the assessment framework are met.

The Bridge has a clear value base in that child abuse and neglect are not acceptable forms of bringing up children in any community.

A multi-disciplinary forensic consultation service

Research and practice have shown that professionals working with families often do not have enough information about parents and carers to enable them to assess the risk that they pose to a child – sometimes they simply do not know the questions to ask. Similarly professionals working with adults, particularly in the field of mental health, can face difficulties in assessing the impact a mental disorder can have on parenting and thus the risks posed to a child.

The service offers consultations either for single two-hour sessions or for a series of consultations to discuss a case. The particular experts who would be appropriate would be determined on a case-by-case basis and can change as the case as it develops.

Referral Process

Referrals may be made to The Bridge office on 020 7704 2386

Assessment costs

An estimate of likely costs and timescales can be given at the time of referral but will vary dependent on each child’s circumstances and the experts to be used. For complex family situations the parties will be invited to a consultation meeting, after which a timetable for the assessment process and a more detailed breakdown of costs will be provided.

20/03/06

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