The process, benefits and challenges of providing psychological consultation in adoption services

Abstract

Psychological consultation is one way of reaching a greater number of families with limited resources, yet little is known about the benefits and challenges of this intervention in adoption. We qualitatively explored consultations provided to adoption social workers by clinical psychologists. Six social workers and four clinical psychologists participated in semi-structured interviews. Five themes with supporting sub-themes were identified: (1) A context of highly emotive work with scarce resources; (2) consultations draw on Dyadic Developmental Practice and systemic thinking and involve goal-oriented and interpersonal processes; (3) consultations experienced as valuable despite challenges; (4) consultations facilitate learning for both social workers and psychologists; and (5) a collaborative focus and the ‘expert role’. Our findings suggest consultation is experienced positively by social workers and psychologists, that it successfully facilitates the transfer of psychological knowledge, and has the potential to enhance multi-agency working. Future research needs to better understand the impact of consultation on adoptive families.

Clarifying an approach to consultation: The impact of a systemic consultation training for schools-based child and adolescent mental health services clinicians

“…However, the third author conducted the literature review after the thematic analysis. This meant that the analysis was construed independently from pre-existing literature and more likely to be a reflection of the data collected (Draper et al, 2022).…”

“…This paper adds to the literature by providing support for a distinct systemic model of consultation. Recent research found that consultation fulfilled the need to move skilled mental health providers and therapeutic interventions into community resources, rather than reserving them for specialist services (Draper et al, 2022). The findings of the study align a model of consultation within the development of a broader relationship focused way of working with children, families, schools and other partners to improve children’s mental health as part of a broader community partnership approach (explained in van Roosmalen, 2018).…”