Next Steps to Making a Referral
Referrals can come from the child, parents/carers, social workers, schools and other organisations across educational, health and community settings.
Once a referral form has been received for example, from a school, an initial meeting is arranged. This would firstly be between the play therapist and referrer, followed by the play therapist and parent/carer where concerns and background details can be gathered. A questionnaire is completed by all parties to help identify the child's strengths and difficulties before therapy commences. It will also be completed at reviews and at the end of therapy. To begin with, this will help to evaluate the best way of helping the child/young person and also be used to help to evaluate how effective the therapy is for that child. The initial meeting provides an opportunity for the school, parent/carer to ask any questions and allows the therapist to discuss with each party, how they can most helpfully support the child through therapy.
Following the initial meetings, a preliminary meeting will be arranged for the child or young person to meet with the therapist. This gives the child the chance to find out what's involved and ask any questions and to also give their consent.
Confidentiality is also explained so that everyone understands the nature of the work and the exceptions to this.
If everyone is in agreement, consent forms will be signed and session dates and times arranged and fees agreed. At this point we will also make sure that there is a suitable private and confidential room that will be available consistently to use each week.
The initial assessment can indicate approximately how many sessions of play therapy the child or young person may need but, because children respond differently, and because sometimes issues come to light during the sessions which we were not previously aware of, it is not always possible to predict this accurately, therefore the number of sessions needed may increase or decrease, this will be advised during review meetings.
