The Consultation, Assessment & Treatment Service (CATS) is a psychology-led service. We aim to support children and young people up to the age of 18 years who have engaged in, or are alleged to have engaged in, harmful sexual behaviour. We offer internal consultations to Children’s Social Care. If clinically indicated, we can offer trauma-informed direct assessment and intervention work with children and their families.
Our team of highly skilled clinicians have extensive experience working in the field of trauma and harmful sexual behaviour. We have a robust, evidence-based understanding of the various pathways into, and needs being met by harmful sexual behaviour. We understand engagement in harmful sexual behaviour as an attempt to meet inherently appropriate needs in inappropriate ways.
We take a non-stigmatising, holistic stance when working with children, young people their families and networks. As a team, we appreciate just how difficult an allegation of harmful sexual behaviour can be to make sense of and respond to as a child, young person or family. We work hard to reassure and support those we work directly with. Ensuring they are involved in the planning and decision-making involving their family.
CATS accepts internal referrals from children’s services where children are:
- subject to planning through Child in Need or Child Protection
- cared for by the local authority
How we work with your social worker
We offer consultations to social workers and their managers to explore and develop a psychological understanding of the alleged harmful sexual behaviour. This supports safety planning and risk management, and to guides direct work being undertaken by Children’s Social Care.
If undertaking direct work with a child or young person, we work closely with the wider professional network around a child. This is to support ongoing formulation of need, to ensure a robust multi-agency response to safeguarding and supporting the child to move forward safety, including seeking opportunities to develop protective factors for that child at what can be a very difficult time in their lives.
We also aims to support the wider Children’s Social Care workforce through training to enhance the wider understanding and response to harmful sexual behaviour.
How we work with you
We carry out psychological assessments and therapeutic interventions with children and their families.
Typically, we will meet with the young person for an agreed number of sessions to carry out an assessment of their strengths and areas of need. With a specific focus on the allegations and factors important in aiding our shared understanding of this. This trauma-informed assessment draws on the Assessment, Intervention and Moving on framework, version 3 (AIM3). As part of this, we meet with parents/carers as well as key members of the professional network (e.g. education, social care).
An assessment report is compiled, usually written directly to the young person, which aims to highlight areas for further intervention, strengths, a psychological formulation of need and recommendations.
After discussion with the young person, family and key members of the professional network, a decision is made about our further involvement. We can offer a range of interventions that are tailored to the individual’s assessment and their broader needs. For example:
- learning or social communication needs
- experiences of trauma
Our intervention can include psychoeducation, emotional literacy and regulation work. This helps with making sense of the harmful sexual behaviour and processing the impact of past or more recent trauma.
We have Clinical Psychologists in the team trained in trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) and eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR).
We understand that sometimes young people and/or their families may not agree with the allegations against them. This is a common and often self-protective response and is not a barrier for us being able to be involved. Nor is there being an open police investigation, although there are additional considerations in this circumstance.