The Children's Autism Assessment Service provides a multi-professional autism assessment of pre-school children.
The service is staffed by a specialist health visitor/service co-ordinator, three specialist nursery nurses and admin support.
The assessment process will depend upon the nature of the child's referral but will involve appointments at our Sunflower centre, home visits, observations in nursery or school plus assessments by any other necessary services. This may include psychology, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. We also work very closely with the Specialist Early Years Team from education, health visitors, school nurses, children and young people's mental health services (CAMHS), and all other professionals involved in the child’s care and they will all also input into the assessment.
Some children who are not in a nursery or school setting of their own will be assessed in our own assessment nursey. All children will be offered appointments beforehand to help familiarise their child to the environment. We will also observe children at a childminder or at other groups such as play groups, forest school etc. as required.
Each child and their family will be allocated a key worker at the beginning of their assessment, this is usually one of our specialist nursery nurses. They will then support you throughout the assessment and be in regular contact with you and will attend all of your child’s appointments with you.
Parents and/or carers are involved in the development of their child’s action plan and this is reviewed at each step of the assessment process.
Children are referred to the service by a consultant paediatrician.
Our working hours are as follows:
Monday to Thursday: 8:00am - 4:00pm
Friday: 8:00am- 1:00pm
Address:
Children’s Autism Assessment Service
Ridge Hill Centre
Brierley Hill Road
Wordsley
West Midlands
DY1 5ST
Tel: 01384 314240
Email: bcpft.cau@nhs.net