Family Therapy Service

You may be offered Family Therapy following an assessment in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

Who we are?

We are systemic psychotherapists who are UKCP registered and we are trained to work with children, young people, couples and families. We work as part of the multidisciplinary team in CAMHS.

What is Family Therapy?

When somebody in the family experiences challenges, there can be ripple effects in relationships between family members. Family Therapists see the family as a resource with strengths that can be utilised in the work.

Family Therapy is about helping families talk and understand together in order to find new ways of bringing about positive changes that work for them.

How might it help my family?

Research shows that Family Therapy is useful for children, young people and adults experiencing a wide range of difficulties and circumstances as well as relationship problems. These include:

Family communication problems
Child/adolescent behavioural difficulties
Self-harm, school refusal, conduct disorder
Eating disorder·
Bereavement/loss/separation
Trauma
Fostering/adoption, kinship care or looked after children.
Autism Spectrum Disorder

What we would like to offer?

We offer a time and space to think and talk about these challenges.

Family therapy is about:

You as a family working together with us as a team to find ways through some difficult or challenging issues that may be impacting on you as a family.
We work together with families because families matter and we help you resource the ‘expertise’ from your own lives to help bring about the changes needed.

Family therapy is not a parenting assessment or about your capacity to parent.

What happens next?

When you first come to meet the family therapist, we will discuss with you how we work together. At the first meeting, we will agree the focus for work and we will review together the progress made on a regular basis.

We understand the challenges of coming together for some families. We can decide together who needs to attend the appointments you are part of that decision.

We hold regular appointments and we make every effort to suit your family circumstances.

The individual work for your child/young person usually continues during the course of the family therapy input.

How long does it take?

This can vary, but it is usually for as long as a family feel that the work is useful for them.

For more information, please watch our video: