Then we will pop into the school for:

Young people spend so much of their time at school. It is a natural environment where we can see your child “in action”.

However, we do understand that some families, or older children and teens, might prefer not to have  a school visit. Instead, we can meet the young person, and/or their parents, in clinic to hear more about what they are experiencing.

This helps us to understand the bigger picture for your child. We'll look at:

We will usually ask a parent or other member of the whānau to fill out the developmental history questionnaire, and we can gather relevant records directly from the school (with parent consent to do so).

Using the information we’ve collected so far, we will then meet for an hour to have a detailed discussion about your child's presenting needs and possible next steps. We'll make sure you come out of the meeting with some strategies to trial and options for moving forwards.

By the end of this phase, we will have worked as a team to put some of the 'jigsaw puzzle' together. This might be enough to be going on with, or we may find we have missing pieces which need Further Assessment.

All up, this phase takes approximately 5 hours of a psychologist's time.