Problem 2: Psychotherapy
There are long waits to individual child psychotherapy
This is a common problem and due to the long durations of child psychotherapy demand and capacity imbalances soon get out of hand. Work through the 7 HELPFUL habits suggestions below and come up with your own thoughts too.
| Handle Demand | |
| Eligibility Criteria |
What are the team criteria that individual child psychotherapy is indicated? (a good subject for an away day workshop) Can a psychotherapist refer to themselves? (this is like allocating to yourself after Choice – less robust and less transparent) |
| Diversion Criteria | Are there other interventions that may help? |
| Full Booking | Create regular assessment slots for psychotherapy (creates a sense of needing to discharge children and young people in a timely manner) |
| Screen Referrals | Should the transfer to this intervention be a multi-disciplinary decision? |
| Flex Capacity | Probably not an issue in longer-term work. |
| Extend Capacity | |
| Know Capacity | Is there a set number that will be taken on? |
| Follow-up focus |
How and who decides when a child is ready to stop? What kind of informed consent does the child or young person have in the ongoing process? Do the outcome measures (appropriate for psychotherapy) taken continue to show improvement? |
| Extend Clinical Roles | Is there enough individual therapy/counselling in the core team before psychotherapy is indicated or required? |
| Monitor Activity | Is activity for psychotherapy monitored? |
| Let go of Families | |
| Closing Case Variation | Is there a multidisciplinary review of cases at regular intervals? |
| Care Plans | Are the goals of such psychotherapy identified in the Care Plan? |
| Process Mapping | |
| Process Mapping | What steps do users go through to access psychotherapy? Do they all add value? |
| Flow Management | |
| Something to do | What else can be offered that would be useful? |