Psychology

Children and young people are referred to psychology by their medical team. If you would like to access psychology for your child, please discuss this with a member of your CHI medical team (e.g. consultant or clinical nurse specialist). Once parents/guardians agree, a member of the team will make a referral to psychology.

All referrals are reviewed by psychology to decide if we are the best service to see your child or if there is a more suitable service for your needs.

At your child’s first appointment, we like to get to know the child or young person and to hear about their family, friendships and hobbies as well as their concerns. Your child will also have the opportunity to speak to us alone if they wish to. Sometime, we may invite a parent to attend the first appointment without their child in order to take a history and hear concerns.

Sometimes it is helpful for psychologists to work directly with parents to help bring about improvements for the child. We may decide together that it would be helpful to have a number of follow-up sessions to support you and your child.

A session with a psychologist usually involves talking together and the psychologist might also use play or art. The psychologist’s job is to understand the difficulties the child or young person is having and to support them and their family to make things better.

If the child or young person is seeing the psychologist for an assessment, the appointment might involve tests. These are different to medical tests your child might have had in the hospital. Psychology tests usually involve questions, paper and pencil tasks, or puzzles. The psychologist will give you information on any tests beforehand so that you and your child know what to expect.

Psychology appointments are usually between 45 and 60 minutes long. Assessment sessions may take longer, with a break if your child needs one. The number of sessions a child or family will have with a psychologist will depend on the issues or concerns. A plan can be discussed at the first session, so that this can be agreed with the child and their family.

Psychology sessions might take place in a psychology room or on the ward. Your appointment letter will let you know where you and your child should go to meet the psychologist, or the psychologist will discuss this with you before your appointment.